


The Bahamas Are Boring This Time Of Year

by OnYourMark



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-11-26
Updated: 2011-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnYourMark/pseuds/OnYourMark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate just dumped him, Agent Burke keeps laughing at him, and Neal has yet to realize just what a bad idea it is to antagonize the FBI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes -- this is a WIP, and usually I am dedicated to finishing those but sadly I don't think this one ever will be. Sorry, fair warning, read at your own risk.

Kate leaves him eight months after Peter Burke starts chasing him.

Neal is destroyed, completely crushed, because Kate was meant to be the one. How often in his business could you find a partner like Kate? Alex wanted to play too many head games and Mozzie is...well, Mozzie is lovable but not like that, and Kate is the one. She was supposed to be the Bonnie to his Clyde (without all the killing). She was supposed to be forever.

And they've had fights before, God knows they've had fights, but this feels final. It feels final because both of them are being bitter and furious and when Kate puts a hand over her face and takes a deep breath, he feels _relieved._ Just for a moment.

"Let's not do this," Kate says softly.

"I don't know why we were doing it in the first place," Neal answers, bewildered. He isn't even sure what they're fighting about. Kate lets her hand drop and looks up at him.

"I'm. Not. Interested," she says, slowly and carefully, "In. Playing. Games."

"What games are we playing?" Neal asks.

"We're not. You are. And you're taking stupid risks, Neal. I'm not going to prison because Peter Burke's more interesting than a bank heist," she says, which seems completely random and almost surrealist to Neal. What the hell does Peter Burke have to do with being in love with Kate? He's just a fed, some cop put there specifically to make Neal's life more interesting. Or difficult. Or possibly both.

But Neal lets her go, because of that one little moment of relief, and for the next two weeks he hates himself for doing it. He sulks; he sits alone in the apartment they were meant to share, drinking wine out of the bottle that was the last little shred of their romance, convinced he was wrong, half-convinced he should call her and beg her to take him back.

Neal Caffrey does not beg. Instead he broods, until one night the bottle slips from tipsy fingers and shatters. He looks down at the glass like it's everything he destroyed and he doesn't know how he destroyed it, but you can't put a glass bottle back together and you can't fix something as fundamentally broken as him and Kate. Or maybe just him.

(Well, you can put bottles back together, Mozzie points out when Neal articulates it to him the next day, Neal hung over and Mozzie sweeping up the glass. Archaeologists do it, he claims, with broken bottles from digs. Neal knows Mozzie is intentionally missing the point, and it's comforting.)

Fine. Kate's gone, he doesn't _need_ Kate. He'll plan a great big adventure on his own, a fantastic heist, and he'll be so stunning he'll be able to walk into whatever museum or home he's robbed and walk right past Peter Burke and they won't be able to do a damn thing about it. Peter's been fun for eight months, but not fun enough. Time to raise the stakes.

Neal steals an exquisite little pocket watch that once belonged to Ben Franklin. He has a soft spot for the colonial era, and Burke knows it; within eight hours of the alarm going off in the National Museum of American History in DC, Burke is there. Neal, sitting on the steps of the auditorium across the street and enjoying a post-heist breakfast sandwich, watches as Burke climbs out of a car that screams "Federal Government" and strolls up the half-circle to the entrance of the museum, trailed by a young woman in business attire and flanked by one of the agents out of the DC office.

He's in there for about forty minutes before he emerges again and crosses the street, unhesitant, certain. Neal wonders if Burke saw him from the car when he arrived, or just knew he would be there.

No reason to stand on ceremony, not with Burke; Neal, half-reclined against the steps, gives him a sunny grin when he approaches. He picked out the suit he's wearing especially to show off; the gray brings out his eyes, and the little silver chain hanging across his vest glitters in the sunlight.

"Caffrey," Burke says, crossing his arms.

"Hiya," Neal replies, shading his eyes, but Burke's still just a silhouette backed by the sun. "Do I know you?"

Burke leans back against the wall next to the stairs, hands propped on the railing. "So here's the only question I have," he begins, thoughtfully. "And I could probably figure this out within two or three days, but I thought I should just go to the source. How'd you get _in_ without tripping the alarm, but not _out_?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, sir," Neal says, still grinning. Burke ducks his head and snorts, amused.

"Fine, make it hard. I like hard," Burke replies. His eyes dart to the chain sitting across Neal's stomach. "You got the time?"

"You got a warrant?" Neal asks. Burke raises his eyebrows, shrugs. Neal takes the watch out of the little pocket in his vest and checks it. Burke carefully makes no move. "Ten-forty."

"Nice watch."

"Yeah, it's a replica of one Ben Franklin supposedly owned," Neal says. "I bought it in the museum gift shop two days ago."

"Thanks for your help," Burke drawls. "Have a nice day, Neal."

"They're on sale!" Neal calls after him, and he can hear Burke laughing as he walks off.

It's the first time they've met face to face, but Neal thinks it went pretty well. Sometime he'd like to be wearing whatever it is he stole, and not a replica, but it'll have to be more subtle than the pocket watch. Technically the chain was in plain sight, which would have been enough for a search, and it would just be embarrassing to get caught that way.

Of course, now that he's proved how awesome he is, he really should stop taunting the poor man. But Burke is fun, and he seems to understand the nature of Neal's life: even if Peter Burke is a lawman, he gets the allure of the con. If he didn't -- if he didn't _respect_ Neal, at least a little -- he wouldn't laugh when Neal taunts him.

Some hauls are too precious and important to risk in playing with Burke, but months pass and Peter has only caught one of Neal's three crimes (and can't prove that one) and Neal finds he...he misses him. He finds himself wondering about the guy, what his life is like, whether Neal is his only case or merely his most entertaining. He'd like to see Burke again.

So he settles down in New York for a few weeks and pokes around, seeing what's on offer. There's a Matisse at the Met, right near the fire escape, but Neal feels the time has not yet come for Matisse, somehow. Still, the Met's not a bad target. He goes shopping, more or less; pages through the Met's online collection until he finds a lovely little Chinese horse, pocket-sized. It's not very valuable but what he's stolen isn't, after all, as important as who's stolen it.

Mozzie thinks he's insane, but Neal sets up a daring theft that allows him to be in the actual museum, one of a crowd of suspects being held there after the theft is discovered, when Burke arrives. This time, Burke makes a beeline for him, looking annoyed.

"Did you have to steal it on my lunch hour?" he demands. Neal raises his eyebrows.

"Sorry. If I ever do steal anything, I'll try to work it around your schedule," he replies. Burke, looking furious (and with a dot of mustard on his tie) storms off. Neal basks in the warm sensation of having gotten to him. They'll never find where he's hidden the horse, and he can come retrieve it later at his leisure.

The next day, he carefully dresses in jeans and a t-shirt, puts on a Mets cap, buys a hot lunch from a sandwich place near Burke's office, and walks into Federal Plaza. He presents his own ID -- Neal Caffrey -- and receives a temporary deliveryman's badge that allows him up to the 21st floor, where the mythical White Collar Crime division does its best work.

He stands outside the glass doors for a minute, peering in; at the far end of the long room there's an older man sitting in a glass-walled office, and below him are rows of desks, each with an agent. Burke's at the desk one removed from the stairs up to the Boss's Office.

Neal elbows the door open and walks up to Burke's desk. Burke's in another one of his bland suits, filling out a form with one hand, chin propped on the other. He looks incredibly bored. Eight or nine art books (oh, Peter, good taste!) are stacked on one corner of the desk, and there's a file on top of them labeled **Neal Caffrey - Index** that makes Neal's mouth water. How he would love to get his hands on that file.

"Delivery for Peter Burke?" he asks.

Burke looks up so fast that Neal has trouble keeping his face straight. After a second, he raises a hand to his face and rubs his eyes, smiling.

"How much do I owe you?" Burke says, playing along.

"Receipt says it's been paid," Neal says, consulting the slip of paper stapled to the bag. "Of course, we always accept tips."

Burke puts out a hand, and Neal slides the bag into it. He sets a bottle of soda on the edge of Burke's desk.

"You are absolutely bugfuck crazy, Caffrey," Burke says. "Here's a tip: come to my place of work again and I'll have you arrested for trespassing."

"I have a visitor's badge," Neal replies, mocking injured.

"You owe me this for yesterday," Burke says, investigating the food inside the bag. Neal's pleased he doesn't seem even to entertain the idea that it might be poisoned or drugged. "Ooh. Meatball."

"Enjoy your meal, Mr. Burke," Neal says.

"That's Agent Burke to you," Peter replies, tucking a napkin in his collar. He's actually going to _eat_ food Neal brought him. Ballsy.

"Be seein' ya, Peter," Neal says, daring, and walks back to the elevators. On his way out he holds the door for a knockout brunette with amazing hips, and he can't resist turning around to admire her while he waits for the elevator --

Until she reaches Burke's desk, and Burke looks up and beams and pulls the napkin out of his collar, standing to kiss her. Neal stares.

It never really occurred to him to do research on Burke; he wasn't a rival or an enemy, just a guy it was fun to bicker with. He has no idea where Burke lives and while he'd seen a ring on his left hand (you notice these things as a con; nice ring too, understated, tasteful) he didn't expect a guy like Burke to be married to a woman who looks like she could be a pulp pinup model.

They're talking while he's staring, and he sees Burke make a small nod in his direction. The woman turns to look over her shoulder, casual, and gives him a smile-and-wave.

Neal beats a less-dignified-than-he'd-hoped retreat into the opening elevator.

 _Clearly_ Peter Burke deserves closer attention, and anyway Neal's flush from a recent job so he has plenty of time to mooch around Manhattan doing whatever he pleases. There's a convenient park across from Federal Plaza, and he lurks there while he waits for the mysterious Mrs. Burke to emerge. When she does, he follows her, expecting she's on her way to lunch. Instead she spends the afternoon shopping, apparently for a dress, and then takes a cab to a little storefront -- Burke Premiere Events. He considers going in, but he doesn't want to creep her out.

He leaves her to her work and heads home, instead. That night he sits up late, thinking about Peter Burke and his knockout brunette. It's not that he can't see how a relatively ordinary guy like Burke ends up with a woman like that; Burke's funny and interesting and okay, a little hot when he takes the jacket off but leaves the holster on. He's just baffled at _himself_ , that he never took the time to find this kind of thing out. Where does Burke live? What's his wife's name? Holy crap, maybe there are little Burke Juniors running around.

This calls for a plan.

Neal is no slouch at improvisation, but he likes to have plans and he's good at making them. He has a system for how he approaches his work, each theft, each forgery, each con. Loosely speaking, the system is the same; it's only the details that change. So he's not sure what the exact goal of the Burke Plan is yet, but that's no problem; he can still apply his plan-making formula and get some interesting results. First: research.

It's not difficult to find information on Peter and Elizabeth (what a nice name) Burke. They own a house, and a quick conversation with the neighbors, disguised as a door-to-door seller of childrens' encyclopedias, establishes that the Burkes have no children but do have a dog named Satchmo. The paperwork for Burke Premiere Events is a matter of public record, and while their schedule isn't, Neal breaks into the office one night and examines Elizabeth's calendar in detail, careful to leave no evidence of his passing there. He doesn't attend the events, because he doesn't want to get made, but he often lurks nearby and watches as Elizabeth supervises setup. Sometimes she and Burke attend the event together -- Burke must own a tux, he looks great in it and it's obviously tailored for him. Elizabeth's dresses are fantastic.

Burke himself is a little bit of a workaholic (great, Neal _would_ land the guy with an ethic) but he has hobbies too. He's a DIY maniac -- spends most weekends working in their backyard, which is frustrating since their backyard is one of the few places Neal can't get an easy view into. He reads voraciously on his lunch break, any day he's not meeting his wife for lunch. Following Peter's a lot trickier because he looks like he expects it, and he's wise to these things in the way Elizabeth has no reason to be, but Neal doesn't think he's been seen yet.

It occurs to Neal that Peter Burke throws his whole self into everything he does -- work, his backyard projects, the books he reads, the crosswords he does with his brow crinkling in concentration. Neal understands this, because he does it too, and he sort of wishes they could talk about it so he could find out if Peter finds it as completely exhausting as Neal does.

Really, though, there's no reason they can't talk about things. They just have to be a little creative. Neal has to be a little creative. He's done his research; now he can start engaging with the mark and figuring out his plan of attack.

He doesn't normally stick around after high-value cons, but if he's going to get inside Peter's head any further he's going to have to catch him unguarded. He's hoping Peter will be furious when he's called in on a private home robbery where Neal made off with a fifty million dollar Picasso (street value: two mil. Hey, hot art is hard to fence. Neal stores it in one of his caches and forgets about it). Neal doesn't see him leave but he's lounging near the fountains at Federal Plaza, smoking a cigarette, when Peter returns.

"Got a smoke?" a voice behind him asks, and Neal grins.

"Sure," he says, taking the new pack out of his pocket (it was something to do with his hands) and offering Peter one.

"Light?" Peter requests, and Neal produces a matchbook.

"You want me to smoke it for you too?" Neal asks, as Peter lights the cigarette. Peter grins around the filter. "I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't," Peter replies, though he exhales a cloud of smoke like an expert. "Don't tell Elizabeth."

Neal laughs, though a small corner of his brain is shouting that he was supposed to catch Peter angry, not amused.

"Who?" he asks.

"My wife? The woman you followed the day you brought me lunch?" Peter suggests.

"Oh, that Elizabeth," Neal answers.

"Creepy, Neal," Peter tells him.

"I'm sorry, have you seen your wife?" Neal asks.

" _More_ creepy," Peter warns. "If it were anyone else I'd already have my semi up their nose and be threatening to break their kneecaps, so consider yourself lucky I know you better than that. Besides, she has mace."

"Duly noted, if unnecessary," Neal says. This is not what he expected. "Has she got a sister?"

Peter stares at him and then bursts out laughing, coughing in the middle of it. When he straightens, he rubs his thumbnail down his cheek.

"So, Picasso," he says. "Come on, Neal, what the hell. It's not even a nice Picasso."

"All your taste is in your mouth," Neal answers. "You don't seem too upset that apparently a Picasso's been stolen."

Peter regards him over the glowing tip of the cigarette. "Well, it was stolen by you."

"Allegedly, and if it were true why would that make a difference?" Neal asks. Peter shrugs.

"You know enough about art to keep it safe," he says. "Most of these assholes going around stealing Rembrandts, I mean, Jesus, you know what they do? Toss 'em in a bag and use 'em like currency. Stack books on them. Get high sitting under one."

Neal winces. Peter nods.

"See? My point. You know how to take care of your pieces and I'm assuming you wouldn't sell to some dickhead who didn't know how to appreciate them," Peter says, waving the cigarette. "You're a criminal, but at least I know if you steal something it'll be safe for me when I find it."

" _When_ you find it?" Neal asks, smiling.

"You underestimate me. That'll nail you in the end," Peter replies, smiling just as wide. He leans in close. "Between you and me, Neal, beating you isn't going to be half as much fun as chasing you."

"Give Elizabeth my love," Neal replies, and winks at Peter before walking away.

Well. That did not at all go according to plan.

Funds are getting low after the Picasso job, so Neal goes after straight-up cash for his next masterpiece: one shouldn't call it a bank robbery, really, it's so much grander than that. Bank robbery calls to mind thugs with guns running from the bank, their sacks stuffed with cash. What Neal does is downright _elegant_ , and nobody even notices the money is gone for half an hour.

By which time it's already in the hands of a very experienced laundress, and Neal is sipping coffee across the street from the bank.

There's no reason to suspect Neal did the deed, but of course he's sitting at the cafe for one specific reason: this is the branch the Burkes bank with, and Elizabeth runs the checks and cash from Burke Premiere Events over to the branch every Friday at three. Neal robbed the bank on Friday at two, and when Elizabeth sees the police cars out front of the bank she turns in his direction. He grins. Elizabeth shakes her head, sadly -- hard to tell if it's sarcastic, at this distance -- and makes a phone call. Then she crosses the street, walks into the cafe, buys herself an iced tea, and sits down next to him at the table.

"Peter's on his way," she says, sipping her tea through a straw, which is adorable.

"Mrs. Burke," Neal beams at her. "So nice to finally meet you."

"Mmhm," she answers. "So am I the ultimate goal, or the Judas Goat?"

"I have to admit I didn't think you'd be gutsy enough to come over," Neal says. "Think of yourself as a bonus feature."

"I feel like I should be offended," she says.

"What did Peter say, when you told him I was here?" he asks, tilting his head.

"He said not to let you near my purse," she replies. "You know, if you want to say hello, we do have phones."

"Where's the fun in that?" Neal asks.

"Not stealing peoples' life savings is kind of fun, I think," she says.

"Aw, that's sweet," he laughs. "The bank's insured. Insurance will pay out, raise their premiums a little, the bank makes a little less profit margin -- your money's safe. That's why bank robbery's such a preferred mode of cash intake for...people of my acquaintance. It's really a victimless crime if you do it right. The corporate edifice absorbs the shock. Plus it adds excitement to the day," he muses. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you," he adds, to change the subject. She raises an eyebrow. "Do you like Renoir?"

Elizabeth laughs, but it works: they spend the next fifteen minutes talking about art, until Neal feels a sharp localized pressure between his shoulderblades.

"Stand up," Peter Burke orders, and this time he's not laughing. "Slowly."

Neal stands. The pressure -- the barrel of Peter's Glock, no doubt -- moves with him.

"Are you carrying?" Peter asks in his ear. One of his hands is already cupping Neal's ribcage, feeling for a holster.

"You know I hate guns," Neal replies. There's a subtle shift and Peter's frisking his other side, efficiently, calmly -- armpit to hip, and then around the small of his back. When it's done, a hand grips the back of Neal's collar and tugs him away from the table, keeping him off-balance. Elizabeth is staring at them both, wide-eyed, but not afraid. Startled, perhaps.

"You are going to stop stalking my wife," Peter says in his ear from behind. Neal wants to protest that he wasn't stalking Elizabeth, that he was just doing _research_ , but yeah, okay, from the outside this maybe doesn't look so good. "Once is funny. Twice is your only warning. Do it again, I'll kill you. You listening to me?"

The thing is, Neal is listening, and he gets it, and he'll respect it, but Peter's voice is low and growly in his ear and his wife's just sitting there watching her husband manhandle him and all he can think about is how yeah, Peter Burke looks pretty hot in a shoulder holster.

Peter releases him and Neal straightens his cuffs.

"Very nice to meet you," he says to Elizabeth, and then he turns to Peter and gives him an _overreaction much?_ look that probably isn't as sincere as he'd like, before he walks away.

He has lost his focus. He really shouldn't be pestering Peter's wife; Peter is the one he should be concentrating on.

It occurs to him, well after it should have, that what Peter did that day at the cafe was illegal. Neal hadn't done anything (that could be proven) to deserve a pat down and a gun in his back. Technically, grasping his collar and shaking him like a puppy could be considered assault. It's not so much that Neal's going to sue the guy chasing him, because he's not _insane_. It's more that this is an Insight: Peter obeys the law, loves the law, and has no compunctions about breaking the law if the terms are right. Which is interesting.

His next stunt is the bond forgeries. And it will come back to bite him on the ass later, but in the moment he doesn't know that. He only knows that when the forgeries are finally uncovered, long after they've been cashed and the money safely put away, there's a knock on his apartment door.

Neal is confident there's nothing incriminating in the apartment other than Mozzie, who checks the peephole and then beats it for the back door. Neal, intrigued, checks it himself and then stifles a laugh, opening the door.

"This time, seriously, I'm gonna need to see a warrant," he says, leaning in the doorway. Peter holds up a bottle of wine. "Or a bribe," he allows, and steps aside. He watches Peter inspect the apartment casually, and wonders if he does that to his friends, as well. He leaves him to it and goes to the kitchen to take down two wine glasses.

"I'm very fond of Syrah," Neal calls, through the open door. "But then you knew that," he adds, emerging to find Peter seated comfortably in one of two slightly ratty overstuffed chairs. Neal opens the wine and pours it out, setting the glasses aside to breathe for a minute or two. "So, to what do I owe this pleasure? Usually I have to stand around in the cold outside a crime scene to get your attention."

Peter steeples his hands, then leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, tapping his fingers against his lips.

"I need to explain something to you about crime," he says, and Neal laughs.

"You're going to teach me about crime?" he asks.

"Yes," Peter says, so seriously that Neal pauses. "I am."

Neal seats himself on the coffee table, facing Peter. "Okay, this should be great. Go ahead."

"When you rob a museum, or an independent bank, or even a private citizen, that's not good," Peter begins. "When you get the attention of the FBI, Neal, that's very bad. But since you're the one leading the chase, you have an advantage. You know what you're going to do next."

"And you don't?" Neal asks.

"I can make educated guesses. Part of the reason you've gotten away with it is that it's hard to predict you," Peter continues, and his eyes are appraising -- like Neal's undergoing some kind of exam. "Ripping off a person hurts them, but it's safer than...other things. Ripping off a museum..." he shrugs. "They have very little political clout. So even if you're a thief, and even if you're _my_ thief to catch, you've been more or less safe for a while now."

"Is that changing?" Neal says warily. He picks up the wine glasses and offers one to Peter, who sips meditatively before continuing.

"Yeah. You ripped off a major corporate entity when you cashed in those bonds," Peter said. "You offended a man with a lot of pull in New York. The result, for me, is great. I get more staff and funding, and there's more pressure on my boss for me to catch you. For you...not so good."

"Don't tell me you've been slacking this whole time," Neal teases.

"No. I've been doing my damndest. But now my response time's going to be faster, and my turnaround's going to be stronger. This is when it gets intense, Neal, when it becomes truly dangerous for you. Your margin for error is slim."

Neal frowns. "Why are you telling me this?"

Peter sits back and sighs, sips his wine again. Neal wonders if he appreciates it, or if Elizabeth picked it out and it's lost on him.

"Nothing we have on you now is more than circumstantial, which you know," he says. "Go honest and there's a good probability you'll never go down. Keep...doing what you're doing, and sooner or later you _will_ go to prison, Neal."

"Isn't that what you want?" Neal asks, and Peter looks so uncertain that it dawns on him Peter meant it: the capture would never be as good as the pursuit.

"You have to have millions in commodity and cash," Peter says. "Maybe not all liquid right now, but I'm pretty sure you could convert it slowly. Get out of the game. Move to the Bahamas, write a novel, just -- don't stick around to get caught."

"This is my one warning, right?" Neal asks.

"Yeah," Peter says. "It is."

"I'll bear that in mind. Thanks for the wine," Neal tells him, and Peter stands to go. Neal stays where he is, thinking, long after Peter has let himself out.

If he does leave, if he stops all the wonderful plans he has and the exciting jobs he could do, he'll get bored. And it would mean no more Peter. And Peter would get bored too. On the other hand, crime isn't a game he can win -- he can't just do something so clever that they'd give up hunting him. Peter can win. Neal can only keep the game going.

Two days later, he robs a touring exhibition of treasure taken up from a Phonecian shipwreck. Peter was right -- the response is a lot faster. But he sits around outside the museum for hours, and Peter doesn't come to talk to him. Peter never even shows his face.

He manages to cash one more forged bond, which should infuriate Peter, but instead some other guy from the White Collar division handles it.

Neal sulks.

And he steals a Raphael.

And Peter _ignores him_.

He knows he sounds like a petulant child, but it's pretty upsetting. Peter's too smart not to realize he pulled these jobs, which means either he's playing a long game or someone else has been put on Neal's case. If the latter, Neal is going to be angry. His agent is Peter, he likes Peter, he doesn't want another agent. He might write a letter of complaint to the FBI.

"Are you hearing yourself?" Mozzie asks him when he mentions all this one evening. "You're actually upset that the guy who has come the closest ever to nailing you for a job might have been reassigned?"

"But it's Peter," Neal insists. "He's fun. This new guy, if there is a new guy, he's obviously no fun."

"You miss the Suit," Mozzie says.

"Well, yeah. Don't you?"

"No! And you know why? Because I don't have a crush like a fourteen-year-old," Mozzie snaps.

"I don't have a crush on anyone," Neal says, puzzled.

"Why do I even talk to you?" Mozzie demands. "Neal, explain to me, in your own words, why Kate left you."

"Ouch, Mozzie," Neal frowns.

"Go on. Explain her motivations as you see them."

Neal sighs, running a hand through his hair. Kate was almost two years ago, now. No, more than. "I never figured it out. She said something about games. We were both being assholes to each other, I wasn't paying close attention."

"Okay. And what was her name, Jenni?"

"Jenni with an I," Neal says, feeling nostalgic. "Wait, she just didn't want to live in New York anymore, right? She was just a fling, anyway."

"What about Benjamin? And Kristina?" Mozzie prompts.

"I'm sorry, what, again, does this have to do with a new agent getting assigned to my file?" Neal asks. Mozzie gives him a pointed look. "Kristina left me because she said I was hung up on someone else. I told her I was over Jenni with an I," he adds, still aggrieved. "Benjamin told me I didn't pay him enough attention."

Mozzie looks at Neal like he didn't believe anyone could be so thick.

"You made New York your HQ," he says. "Most of your really notable crimes are here, now. Remember when you'd fly to Venice on a moment's notice?"

"I like New York," Neal says defensively.

"You like the Suit. You whine about the Suit. Neal, you have a crush on the Suit, and it's really getting pathetic because he's a grown man and you're drawing hearts around his name in your yearbook," Mozzie bursts out. Neal stares at him. "You have to stop trying to passive-aggressively get his attention because it's going to get you _arrested_."

"I'm not!" Neal says, but it doesn't sound very convincing even to him.

"Maybe you're really crazy," Mozzie says thoughtfully. "Like, tumor-pressing-on-your-brain crazy, that you don't see this."

"Mozzie!"

"Seriously. Work out your issues with authority or your daddy problems or whatever it is that's wrong with you and move on," Mozzie tells him. "Because he obviously has."

He gets up and walks out and slams the door, which would be more dramatic if it wasn't a sliding glass door, but Neal understands the symbolic gesture.

Neal Caffrey does not have a crush on Peter Burke. The idea is ridiculous. He can name any number of reasons why; Peter is eight years older than him (to a twenty-four-year-old this is a good reason). Peter's married. He's a cop. He's probably straight.

It occurs to Neal that these are all really great reasons Peter wouldn't be attracted to him. They're not really reasons Neal can't be attracted to Peter.

"Oh, my god," he says aloud to the empty room, because it hits him: yes, in fact, the last two years he has spent trying to impress Peter Burke. And that's why Kate left him, and why Jenni with an I was just a fling, and why Benjamin got tired of being ignored and Kristina thought he was cheating on her. He did all those jobs to get Peter's attention and show Peter how clever he was.

He knows where Peter and Elizabeth live.

It's a warm summer night and he can smell meat cooking on a grill somewhere when he knocks on their door. There's a scramble of claws -- the dog, Satchmo -- and then Elizabeth answers it. She must have seen him through the window, because she doesn't look more than mildly surprised.

"It's Neal, isn't it?" she asks, teasing him a little, and he wonders how often Peter talks about him. Oh, this is bad.

"Can I talk to Peter?" he says. She gives him a skeptical look, but stands aside.

"He's in the backyard," she tells him. (Oh, the mysterious backyard!) "If he burns our steaks you're paying for them."

Neal barely hears her. He's almost at the back door when it opens and Peter yells through it, "Honey? Who was that at the _Jesus Christ Caffrey._ "

Peter jerks back one way and Neal jerks back the other and almost into Elizabeth, who covers her mouth to hide her laughter. The door bangs open and Peter surges through, grabs him by the collar of his shirt, and slams him into a wall. There's a meat thermometer pressed to his stomach.

"Peter!" Elizabeth sounds appalled.

"What are you doing in my house?" Peter snarls. It's the gun between the shoulderblades all over again.

"Peter," Elizabeth takes his arm, pulling the really very sharp thermometer away from Neal's shirt. It would be funny if Neal didn't know Peter is strong enough to rip his guts out with it. "He knocked. I let him in."

Peter slowly releases his grip on Neal's collar, stepping back.

"You can't _phone?_ " Peter asks. Neal just stares at him; Peter apparently finds this amusing, because he crosses his arms and smiles. "Come to give yourself up, Caffrey?"

"Yes," Neal says, then winces, because he didn't really mean to say that. Peter blinks at him. He glances at Elizabeth briefly, then back at Neal.

"What, seriously?" he asks. Neal chews on his lip. "Okay, well -- step into my office," he says, tilting his head at back door. Neal leads; he knows Peter's not dumb enough to walk in front of him.

There are steaks and burgers on the grill in the backyard. Charcoal, Neal notes approvingly.

"Before you say anything -- " Peter begins, but Neal rolls right over the top of it: "I stole the Raphael."

"Neal -- "

"I forged a bunch of bonds, too, you know the ones, I just cashed one of them last month," Neal continues, breathless. "I stole the Phonecian Cross and I robbed the bank where you and Elizabeth do your banking. I took a whole bunch of stuff, I can give you a list, do you want the highlights?"

Peter reaches down into a cooler off to the side of the grill and turns around, handing him a bottle of beer.

"Thank you," Neal says. "And hey, you know what the really crazy thing is? The mind-blowing part of my rampant crime spree?"

Peter sips his own beer, calm. "Do tell."

"I did it to impress you," Neal announces, and he can't look at Peter so he starts to pace, waving his beer bottle around. "I mean obviously it didn't _start out_ that way, but then Kate left me because she thought I was hung up on you, which I was, and I can't figure out why, because you're not my type -- "

"Female and breathing?" Peter offers.

" -- and I didn't even notice. So yeah, I didn't stop when you told me to because if I had, when would we have seen each other? And anyway the best part of it was watching you figure out how I did it," Neal continues. "So I think you should know that I am, in fact, a genius, a criminal mastermind, and a talented artist. I am all that. And if I didn't confess you'd never have caught me."

He sets the beer bottle down on a nearby table with finality.

"Are you done?" Peter asks.

"Yes," Neal says.

"Sit down," Peter commands, and Neal sits. Peter goes to the door again and leans inside more cautiously this time, like there might be another thief waiting to startle him. "El, is the salad ready?"

"Just about," Elizabeth's voice drifts out.

"Steaks are done, and can you bring me the file from the hall table? What do you like on your burger?" Peter asks, turning back to Neal. Neal, bewildered, flails for an acceptable answer.

"Onions?" he ventures. Peter nods and holds the door for Elizabeth as she emerges. She gives Peter a sidelong look when she sees Neal sitting at the table, but she offers him a plate and heaps salad onto it while Peter brings a pair of steaks and a pile of hamburgers to the table.

"Eat," Peter commands, flipping a burger onto a bun on Neal's plate. After a moment, some onions flop onto it as well.

Neal, perplexed, reaches for the barbecue sauce Peter just got done dumping on his own plate. It's a really good hamburger.

"So," Peter says, around a mouthful of steak, "Obviously, you're under arrest."

Neal nods.

"Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure if we charge you with everything you just confessed to, you'd go away for a really long time, and prison's pretty boring," Peter continues. "Also, a waste of your talents."

He picks up the file Elizabeth brought out with her and tosses it across to Neal, who opens it curiously. After a moment, Neal looks up.

"I shouldn't know this exists," he says slowly.

"No, you shouldn't," Peter agrees.

"This is incriminating." Neal pages through document after document tying him to the bond forgeries. "I'd never beat this at trial, would I?"

"Not unless your lawyers are also magic, no." But Peter's smiling. Neal tries to work out why Peter would show him this.

"Are you...how long have you had this?" he asks.

"Bout two weeks," Peter replies. "The Bureau doesn't know I have any of this yet."

"Why...?" Neal looks at him, baffled.

"I was working on saving your ass from a felony conviction," Peter tells him. "Eat your salad."

"Be nice," Elizabeth remonstrates.

"I haven't handcuffed him," Peter points out. Neal picks the tomatoes out of his salad and takes a bite. "Neal, it's not like I didn't know what you were doing."

"You _knew?_ " Neal demands.

"You weren't very subtle," Elizabeth says, taking one of the tomato slices off his plate.

"You think it's coincidence I suddenly went off radar?" Peter asks. "Sooner or later you were going to come looking for me. It's because you're bugfuck crazy," he adds, but it's almost affectionate. "When you did, I wanted to have a proposal ready for you."

"You -- " Neal chokes on his lettuce. He hates lettuce, but Elizabeth keeps watching him like if he doesn't eat his salad he can't have any dessert. He wonders what's for dessert.

"If you plea-bargain you can confess to the bond forgery," Peter is saying, so Neal rediverts his attention from Elizabeth. "The FBI's willing to work with the US Attorney to cut you a deal. Are you familiar with these?" he asks, and pulls a sheet from the bottom of the file, laying it on top. It's a website printout of something that looks like a shock collar. Neal gives him an alarmed look.

"It's a GPS-enabled house-arrest tracking anklet," Peter says. "They're neat little devices. You pick a central point and tell it how far the prisoner can go from that central point -- some guys get twenty-two feet. Some guys get two, even five miles."

"Sounds great," Neal drawls.

"You plea-bargain with me, you get one of these instead of a supermax prison cell," Peter continues. "You enter my custody as a work-release felon. I own you for the duration of your sentence, to be determined by the US Attorney."

Neal studies the tracking anklet. "You own me? What does that mean?"

"It means you live with my wife and me, so I can keep an eye on you, and you work with the White Collar unit as a consultant," Peter says, and Neal begins to realise that if he's bugfuck crazy, Peter's neck and neck with him in the Bugfuck Crazy Stakes. "It'll keep you out of prison and hopefully out of mischief."

Neal is aware he could get gone from here pretty quickly. He could go over the fence and be on the run, grab some stuff from one of his caches and get out of New York for good. He could run, right here, right now.

He runs a finger along the printout, thoughtfully. Peter sucks barbecue sauce off his thumb. Neal glances sidelong at Elizabeth, because no woman in her right mind would allow her husband to board a felon in their home. So she's probably nuts too.

"All the attention you want," Peter says, a little dry. "Trust me, Caffrey, you work for me and you'll be _drowning_ in my attention."

Neal puts the papers in order and closes the folder, laying it carefully aside. "Okay. How do we do this?"

Peter's smile is approving and Neal's guts twist and man, how did he spend over two years not getting this?

"You stay here tonight, so you can't get cold feet," Peter says. "In the morning, I'll bring you in to the office and process you through the system. We'll meet with the US Attorney's Office representative tomorrow afternoon and you'll put in a guilty plea on the bonds. It'll take a while, but it should be reasonably painless."

"Why would you do this?" Neal asks.

"Because chasing you is so much more fun," Peter says, his voice low. Both he and Elizabeth are grinning. Neal feels something warm well up inside him -- Peter thinks he's clever, and Peter's going to keep him.

"Eat your dinner, Neal," Elizabeth says.

"And then you can help her do the dishes," Peter adds.

Neal pointedly doesn't finish his salad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the kinkmeme, [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/collarkink/1404.html?thread=1804668#t1804668): There is an old Thief and Detective manga where the thief, although he steals priceless jewels and such, is actually after the love of the detective. When I first started watching this series, it's what it kind of reminded me of. Maybe this could be some pre-series AU or whatever the writer can come up with but I'd like to see Peter and Neal in this kind of story.
> 
> Prettied up and posted here!


	2. Home Is Where The Peanut Butter Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why hello there, new chapter! I didn't intend to write more than I had, but then I decided I had more to write. This isn't done yet; I've got Ideas worth at least another two chapters, but I thought I'd get this posted before Yuletidepocalypse hits, and anyway I won't get much chance to write again until after the holidays. Hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> Bear in mind that this all takes place about four years before the pilot, as Neal went directly into Peter's custody instead of prison.

Peter wasn't kidding about the dishes.

When they've finished eating -- after cupcakes and coffee -- Elizabeth asks him to collect up the plates, while she takes the cups and the salad bowl.

The Burkes have a dog, introduced as Satchmo (he knew this already) who sits in the kitchen and watches them with tongue lolling as Elizabeth sets the bowl in the sink and runs water into it. She thanks him with a warm smile when he adds the plates to the soapy water.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she says, as she wets a dishcloth and wrings it out. "Peter gets defensive sometimes."

"If he snuck into my house and was bothering my girlfriend, I'd probably react badly," Neal says, not sure what he's supposed to be doing. She passes him a hand towel.

"Kristina, right?" she asks, and he frowns. "Your girlfriend?"

"Nah, she's last month's news," Neal replies, giving her a bright grin. "I'm unattached at the moment. How did you know about Kris?"

"Peter also gets obsessive," Elizabeth replies. "I'm surprised he couldn't predict you'd be here tonight. He knows a lot about you. It's his job," she adds, beginning to scrub the silverware. She hands him a pair of forks and he dries them automatically. "Second drawer to the left."

"This must be weird for you," he says, opening the drawer and leaving it there so that he can put the rest of the silverware away as she passes it to him. "You're not afraid or anything?"

"Of you?" she asks, amused. "My husband tried to gut you with a meat thermometer and you almost let him. He knows you don't like guns or violence. Frankly we don't have anything in your league worth stealing."

"Still," he presses. Elizabeth turns to him, one hand wet and soapy, the other holding a plate. "Did he mean it? I'm supposed to live here?"

She turns back to her washing. "Peter's always taking in strays. You won't be the first."

"Oh," he says, unaccountably disappointed.

"First felon, of course," she qualifies, and the disappointment fades just as unexpectedly. "He had a probie who was having trouble finding a place to live, so he stayed with us for a few months. We've had some witnesses Peter didn't want to let out of his sight. One very troubled young woman who got caught up in a forgery bust, Peter spent some time helping her get on her feet again. He's a good man," she says, but more to herself than to him.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Neal blurts, without meaning to, and Elizabeth goes still and quiet at the sink. "I wanted him to notice me. I don't know why."

There's a long silence; she goes back to washing dishes, and he dries them automatically as they're handed to him, stacking them on the counter.

"Maybe something was missing in your life," she suggests quietly.

"I have everything," he says. "Money -- I can steal anything I want, I can trick anyone, it's not power, it's -- "

"Are you happy?" she asks, still not looking at him. "Do you like being a criminal?"

That stings a little.

"I like what it gets me," he replies.

"Money and power?" she asks.

"Sure. Besides, I never found anything else I liked doing."

Elizabeth passes him a glass, and he dries it carefully. "Do you know what's real, Neal?"

It's such a totally off-the-wall question that he hesitates before he answers, "Of course."

"Most of the people Peter arrests don't. He tells me about it, sometimes. They're always so surprised when he brings them in. They're shocked when they go to jail, like they didn't think it really existed," she says. "You're different. Peter knows it. You know how to lie, but I think you know what's real, even if it's not what you think it is. You're too smart not to."

"Not too smart to get caught," he says ruefully.

"Well, Peter's a very smart, very persistent man. I think you like that he knows what's real, too," she said. She passes him another glass. "But that's just my opinion."

Neal considers this. He's not sure he understands. It seems like Peter and his wife might both be smarter than him, and he's not accustomed to being the dumbest guy in the room.

"Anyway," Elizabeth continues, "Peter really wanted us in here so I could tell you the house rules."

"No shedding on the furniture?" Neal guesses, smiling. She smiles back and turns again, hip hitched against the sink, holding out her hand for the dishtowel. He takes her hand instead, drying it carefully.

"Con man," she murmurs, as if she's reminding herself. He could slip her wedding band off her finger, but he doesn't.

"Rules?" he prompts.

"Curfew for you is ten o'clock," she says. "You have your own bedroom; what you get up to isn't our concern, as long as you're in it and quiet from ten to six. If you bring someone home, one of us needs to know about it first."

"What am I, fourteen?" he asks.

"Were you bringing girls home at fourteen?" she shoots back.

"I didn't have a home at fourteen," he retorts, and he didn't mean to give that away. Her eyes widen; for a second her face softens, but then she frowns and looks down where he's carefully drying her right hand.

"If you cook something, clean up after yourself," she continues, after a moment. "Any of the food is fair game. Peter doesn't expect you to eat with us, but if you're both home, I do. I get the television remote any time there's not a game on. Peter gets it whenever there is."

"I'm not a big TV guy," Neal agrees.

"Whoever's home walks Satchmo. No table scraps unless it's mashed potatoes. He really likes mashed potatoes," she adds with a shrug, when she sees his expression. Satchmo whines gently. "Do I need to tell you that you can't drive the car?"

Neal shakes his head, because at this point he's just letting the rules wash over him.

"Weekends, Peter -- "

"Backyard DIY," Neal says. She laughs.

"I see he's not the only one who's done his homework. He'll expect you to help, with that and with other chores around the house. I just expect you to stay out from underfoot while I'm working."

"I'm good with my hands," he says, folding the towel.

"That may have come up," she says, her tone dry. "Any questions?"

He can't think of any, at least not the kind she means. He thinks about his apartment, all the stuff there, most of it meaningless to him. He thinks about Mozzie. About not going back. About living here, and what that's going to mean. About prison.

"What happens next?" he asks, ducking his head a little. To his surprise, she reaches up and brushes a lock of his hair back, affectionately.

"Well, I have work to do, and Peter's probably going to have some phone calls to make," she says. "You're welcome to any of the books, or I can show you your bedroom and you can get some rest."

"It's eight o'clock," he says.

"You look tired," she answers. He does feel tired, he feels like he's lived a hundred years since that morning, when he had no idea this was going to happen. When he opens his eyes -- he didn't even realize he'd closed them -- she smiles.

"This way," she says, and leads him out of the kitchen. In the dining room, Peter is indeed on the phone; he gives them an absent nod. Neal can't think of a single person he'd trust the way Peter Burke apparently trusts his wife with his newest prisoner. He's still thinking about this when they reach the top of the stairs.

"Bathroom," she says, waving at it, and then, "Our bedroom," with another gesture. They walk along the hallway, past another flight of stairs, and there's a smallish room over the kitchen, looking out on the backyard. It's plainly furnished, obviously a guest room, a few trinkets on the windowsill and a bed with a green quilt on it. There's a desk, a bookshelf, some frames on the walls: a poster from the Met, Elizabeth with what must be her parents, Peter with his arm around the shoulders of a young woman in a mortarboard.

"That's Agatha," Elizabeth says, seeing Neal studying the photo. "One of his special cases. She works in advertising now."

"He looks proud," Neal says.

"Well, of course." Elizabeth, when he glances at her, looks proud too. Neal turns away to look out the window, though it's dark and there's not much to be seen. In daytime, the light will be good, at least in the afternoons. He sits on the bed.

"I'll let you settle in," Elizabeth says, turning to the doorway. "Towels in the closet outside the bathroom. Some of Peter's old clothes are in the dresser, bottom drawer, if you need something to sleep in. If you need anything else, we'll be around."

"What if I go out the window?" he asks. "Slide down the gutter, over your back fence? You come in tomorrow morning and I'm gone?"

Elizabeth shrugs. "Then you're a fugitive who fled arrest and Peter will catch you. But you won't," she adds.

"Why?"

"You don't want to disappoint him," she says. "Besides, if you run, you're going to prison. I'm pretty sure you'd prefer the alternative."

She leaves him alone in the homey little room, and Neal sits down on the bed thoughtfully. The insanity of what he's done should be hitting him, but instead of terror he feels a strange sense of accomplishment. This is their home, and neither of them seem to care that Neal is a thief and a liar. Everything is upside down, and Neal can't find it in himself to care.

He won't be able to steal anymore. Or forge, unless he's very careful. He won't be able to con people, at least not in front of Peter, and not to any great effect. It's been his whole life, and he just traded it all in for this little room with the green quilt on the bed and a poster from the Met.

He wore his best suit to do this. He takes it off carefully, hangs up the coat and tie, examines the small, greasy stain on his shirt where Peter attacked him. In his trousers and undershirt he walks out into the hall and down to the bathroom, running cool water over the stain, dabbing shampoo on it from a bottle in the shower. He hangs the shirt on a rack over the radiator, obviously installed by hand, probably by Peter.

Back in the room -- his room -- he drapes his trousers carefully over the back of a chair, lines up his shoes near the door, and rummages in the dresser. There are running pants and sweaters in it, slightly too big for him, but they're comfortable enough and the sheets on the bed are soft and warm.

It's half past eight in the evening. Neal closes his eyes, and two minutes later he's asleep.

\---

He wakes in darkness, though there's a shaft of light nearby when he opens his eyes, falling across his legs on the bed. Neal sleeps lightly and always knows where he is; he's in Peter Burke's house, and that's Peter standing in the doorway, too tall and broad to be Elizabeth. Neal props himself on an elbow.

"Making sure I didn't run?" he asks, blinking at Peter's silhouette. Peter leans in a little, more visible now that he's blocking the direct light.

"Part of the job," Peter replies. Neal sits up, pulling the blanket with him, arms wrapped around his knees. Peter steps inside, closing the door behind him.

"What happens tomorrow?" Neal asks, feeling five years old again, before life went to shit and he decided he was going to be the best at everything, so that he wouldn't have to watch the bottom fall out of his existence ever again. Peter sits on the bed.

"We get up, we eat breakfast," he says, tone even, no judgment in his voice. "You put your suit on, and I take you in to the FBI. You'll have to be cuffed once we reach the Federal Building. It's not going to be private, Neal. Everyone needs to see you come in. They need to see me bring you in."

"Politics?" Neal asks lightly.

"You're a gold star next to my name," Peter replies, just as lightly. "You want me to keep you, I need to have the power you're going to bring me. This has to be very visible, and by the book. If all goes well, you'll get a tracking anklet by tomorrow afternoon, along with a court date for a hearing regarding your sentencing."

"What if all doesn't go well?" Neal asks.

"You let me worry about that," Peter says.

"How do I know you're not going to screw me?" Neal presses. Peter laughs.

"I knew you were paranoid, but getting it first hand..." he shakes his head. "I made you an offer in good faith, in my own home, in front of my wife. She and I, we don't lie to each other. I've never lied to you, either, Neal, but if my wife's in the room you know my word is good. I wouldn't degrade myself in front of her."

Neal smiles. "I didn't think you were that much of a poet, Peter."

"There's no poetry about it. Just respect and honesty. Those are a moral code I've chosen. As long as you're here with us, they're yours as well."

"I've never had a lot of use for honesty," Neal says, leaning back casually.

"And yet you want it from me?" Peter replies.

"Touche," Neal says, and then as Peter rises to go, "Peter?"

"Yes, Neal?" Peter asks, sounding amused.

"Is this gonna work?"

Peter shrugs in the darkness. "That's up to you. Work hard, help me close cases, tell me the truth, don't fuck up the chance I'm giving you -- yeah, it'll work. Lie to me, steal from me, run away, screw things up, and I'll throw your ass in prison and forget you ever existed."

"Harsh."

Peter opens the door, passing back out into the hallway. "The rules are easy. Following them isn't really that hard either. You know what's expected of you. You wanted to impress me? You get your chance. G'night, Neal."

"Night, Peter," Neal says softly, once Peter is gone.

\---

The next morning, Neal wakes to the smell of coffee. He can hear through his floorboards to the kitchen downstairs; Peter and his wife are there, laughing at something, and Neal decides he'd rather be clean and presentable than interrupt. His shirt is dry and the stain -- well, it's mostly gone, enough that nobody will notice once his jacket is on. He washes, shaves, dresses, knots his tie, makes sure he looks perfect; if he's going to be a felon he'll be a goddamn presentable one. When he comes down the stairs, Peter looks up from the newspaper he's reading at the dining-room table.

"Good morning," Elizabeth says with a smile. Neal smiles back and gestures at the kitchen.

"Coffee?" he asks. She nods, so he goes through, pours himself a cup, and joins them at the table. Peter nudges a box of cereal towards him.

"Eat up, I don't know when you're getting lunch," he says. Neal isn't all that fond of Sugar-Os, but they're food, and there's a prize in the box. He burrows through the cereal for it. Peter makes an exasperated noise. The toy is a cheap mirror with a superhero of some kind printed on the case. Neal entertains himself while he eats, setting up the mirror so he can watch Peter's expressions but Peter can't see him, or that Neal is watching him. It's an idle pastime, but it's not a bad one. He can't figure out whether he's nervous about being walked into the FBI in cuffs or excited that this might be not only the greatest con of his life but also the best adventure. Anything could happen in the next twelve hours, and that's the best kind of rush: knowing things will go wrong and that even when they do you will undoubtedly come out on top.

Winning is very important to Neal. He tries not to think about how completely and totally he has lost to Peter in this case.

When breakfast is over, Peter kisses his wife goodbye and herds Neal into his car. He drives like a maniac, but they somehow manage to stay alive long enough to get into Manhattan, and before Neal has allowed himself to unclench his hands, Peter is opening the door, pulling him out, and holding up a pair of handcuffs.

"I'll make it quick," he says with a grin, and Neal realises this is as frightening for Peter as it is for him. Walking into the office with the catch of the century (no false modesty, please!) doesn't happen every day.

He puts his hands behind his back, wrists crossed. The cuffs are warm; they've been in Peter's pocket.

Walking through the lobby of the Federal Building is strange enough; people turn and look, but they don't know Peter and they don't know who Neal is, so they move on quickly. It's when they walk out of the elevator, into the office where Peter works, that things get intense.

It's only Neal's second time here, and the first time he was in disguise. This time, walking in ahead of Peter with Peter's hand resting on the chain between his wrists, Neal can see the wave of recognition sweep through the office. People stop what they're doing to watch him perp walk down the central aisle. Neal keeps his head up, struts a little, smiles at no one in particular, and tries to ignore the humiliation of it all. He reminds himself he _likes_ being the center of attention.

Peter's boss, the beaky, white-haired guy in the glassed-in office, comes out to stand at the railing. Peter guides him to the stairs, stopping him with a gentle tug on the cuffs.

"Neal, this is our Special Agent in Charge, Reese Hughes," he says, no hint of smile on his face. "Sir, Neal Caffrey."

Neal nods.

"You just won me fifty bucks," Hughes says.

"He had a bet going with my ASAC about whether I'd catch you," Peter says quietly.

"Can you make it stick?" Hughes asks Peter, who nods. "In that case, get him settled in and come see me."

Peter unlocks the cuffs, and Neal rolls his shoulders for a bare second before Peter's handcuffing him to the drawer of his desk. Nobody is even bothering to do any work anymore, so Peter grabs the nearest agent and says, "Watch him," before turning to Neal and adding, "Don't move."

Neal sits calmly in Peter's chair and tucks his free hand under his thigh. They both know the cuffs wouldn't hold him unless he wanted them to. Peter gives him a nod and takes a folder from his desk, bounding up the stairs.

"I'm Neal," Neal says to the man who has pulled up a chair and is staring at him. Silence. "And you are?"

No response. Neal decides to name him Dan. He looks like a Dan.

"So this is White Collar," Neal continues, looking around. Dan just keeps watching him. Neal very carefully keeps one hand on Peter's drawer and the other under his thigh. "Nice place. Could use some color. Maybe a couple of paintings or something. I'm not a fan of beige."

"How do you like orange?" a voice asks. Neal turns his head to find a young agent regarding him solemnly. The others are slowly going back to their work, or at least pretending to.

"It's daring, but it does bring out my eyes," Neal says. "Neal Caffrey. I'd shake, but I don't want to get shot."

"Agent Ressling," she replies. "That's okay, I don't shake hands with criminals."

"Then how are you ever going to learn anything interesting?" he asks with a grin. "You work with Peter? I don't recognize you."

"I'm his probie," she answers. "It's okay, Agent Jackson, I'll keep an eye on him."

Dan -- Agent Jackson, though Neal will always think of him as Dan, now -- gives her a curt nod and walks away. Agent Ressling leans on the desk. She has a shoulder holster, but it's not doing her blouse any favors, and her jacket is awkward over it. Or maybe that's the point; the holster is very visible.

"You must have done something stupid last night," she said. "Yesterday we couldn't pin anything on you, today Agent Burke walks in with you in cuffs? I'm hurt he didn't call."

Neal's grin widens. Peter hasn't even told his own agents about the evidence he's compiled, the links to the bonds Neal forged. "I confessed."

The smile drops right off her face. "Are you serious?"

"Well, there was nothing good on TV," he shrugs.

She's opening her mouth to reply when they both hear Peter's boss yell _YOU WHAT?_ through the thin glass wall of his office. Agent Ressling looks up for a brief moment before she returns her attention to him, but it's long enough for Neal to slide the mirror out of his sleeve and flick it up -- it's in the hand cuffed to the desk, but he can tilt it just enough to see Agent Hughes standing, leaning over his desk, Peter sitting calmly in the chair across from it.

"What exactly did you confess to?" Ressling asks. Neal tucks the mirror between two fingers and down, hiding it behind the desk handle.

"Bond forgery," Neal says. "Why, have I committed any other crimes?"

She gives him a dry look. Neal keeps beaming.

He can hear the door open and Peter bark, "Ressling!"

"Sir," Ressling calls, without looking away from Neal.

"Bring Caffrey up here."

Ressling catches Peter's keys easily and unlocks the cuff around the desk drawer; she re-cuffs his hands behind his back (mirror tucked up in his palm) and walks him up to Hughes's office. Peter thanks her and seats Neal in the chair he's just vacated. Neal sits on the edge, hands still bound behind him.

"Just so we're all on the same page," Hughes says, as Peter leans against the bookcase near the door, "Burke, you built a case without notifying me or anyone else in your department. Caffrey, you've confessed to the crime detailed in that case, and Burke has informally offered you a plea-bargain that includes taking full custody of you for the duration of whatever sentence the justice system sees fit to affix."

Neal looks at Peter.

"I think that covers it," Peter says.

"Okay, I have to ask," Hughes starts, and then rubs his forehead, "how did this go down?"

Neal gives him a cocky look. "I don't know, a couple of years on the FBI's leash seemed preferable to lockup. I know a good thing when I see it."

"You know a good thing when you forge it," Peter murmurs.

"Listen, I'm not going to bullshit you," Neal says earnestly, and Hughes narrows his eyes. "I'm not reformed, I didn't find God, I'm not here to lead a clean life. It's the better alternative, that's all. Best man won."

That's pretty embarrassing to say, but it seems to relax Hughes a little.

"Uncuff him," he tells Peter, who unlocks the handcuffs and tucks them back in his pocket. Neal folds his hands in his lap calmly. Every instinct he has is saying run, but he's here for a reason, and rabbiting out of the FBI is going to get him about ten feet before someone takes him down.

"This is going to be so much paperwork," Hughes grumbles, but he clicks a few buttons on his computer keyboard, and a printer on a shelf behind him starts spitting out forms. "I'll need statements from both of you. There's the US Attorney -- "

"Should be here any minute," Peter supplies. "I've already put in a request for custody and they're hammering it out with the Marshals."

Hughes raises an eyebrow. "A suspicious bastard might almost think you two were in collusion on this."

"Good thing there are none of those here, sir," Peter says with a completely straight face.

\---

The representative from the US Attorney's office arrives the same time that a courier does. They've moved to the conference room by now, because the number of people who have to get involved in Neal's case just keeps growing, so when the courier knocks on the door nobody really thinks it's that unusual.

Until he says, "I have a package here for Neal Caffrey?"

Peter looks at Neal. Neal looks back, wide-eyed, because he honestly doesn't know what it is.

"I'll sign," Peter says, and takes the package gingerly by the edges.

"If this is a bomb -- " Hughes starts, but Peter cuts him off.

"He's nonviolent," he reminds them, and rips the package open without even looking at Neal. To their credit, nobody in the room flinches.

There's the sound of a phone ringing from inside the package. Peter holds it up. Neal shrugs and shakes his head, so Peter answers the call.

"Agent Burke, FBI," he says, with a little grin on his face. "Mmhm. Mmhm. Oh really." He takes the phone away from his ear. "It's your lawyer."

Neal doesn't have a lawyer. He shrugs again. Peter puts the phone on the table and presses the Speaker button.

"This is Neal Caffrey," Neal says.

" _Neal, don't say my name._ "

Mozzie. Shit. He probably should have warned him.

"Mr. Haversham," Neal says pleasantly.

" _Sit tight, kiddo, I'm going to get you out of this._ "

"No, thank you," Neal replies.

" _Excuse me?_ "

"I won't be needing your services right now, Mr. Haversham."

" _Neal, what are you --_ " there's a pregnant pause. Peter looks like he's trying not to laugh. " _\-- oh my God, you turned yourself in. You idiot, that wasn't what I meant when I said --_ "

"It's okay, I won't give anyone your number. We'll talk later," Neal says, still calm, and hangs up the phone. Mozzie knows what it means. _I won't snitch on you._ Neal turns to Hughes. "Sorry. I have very loyal friends."

"Do we need to worry about this Haversham character?" Hughes asks Peter. Peter purses his lips.

"I don't know him," he says.

"You don't," Neal interrupts, offering him the phone. "Don't have to worry, I mean."

"Okay then," Peter says, pocketing it. "Now, where were we..."

\---

It's a long, boring day for Neal, in the end. It's mostly paperwork; he signs his name so many times that he gets bored with _his own name_. It's interesting to watch the FBI at work from the inside, and he does notice little things (Peter, like Hughes, carries a Glock 19; everyone else in the office has a 23) which keep him busy for a while. But mostly he just sits quietly, answers questions when asked, and signs. Peter has Ressling order them lunch; sandwiches from the place where Neal bought a sandwich for Peter, once upon a time. This is not lost on Neal.

The US Marshals show up around three, looking sullen that Burke caught the guy they were chasing, but they have two important items: a flashdrive with a program on it for Peter's computer, and a tracking anklet for Neal. It's smaller than he thought it would be. The picture of it Peter showed him gave no sense of scale, but he's surprised how light it is around his ankle, even though it also feels like it burns. That's just his own romanticism. It'll go away.

Neal's hearing is set for Friday, two days away. The guy from the US Attorney's office says he'll be in touch with contact information for Neal's public defender. Peter has a meeting with about eight million scary-looking boss-types in severe suits, and Neal spends the time fiddling with his new anklet, figuring out what angle looks best, whether he can tuck it under his sock (no) and how far up his leg it has to be before the hem of his pants covers it. If he wants to wear boots, there are going to be issues.

After that, though, Peter rejoins Neal at his desk and puts a box in his hands, loading files into it.

"Officially," Peter says, sifting through a handful of blue folders, "you're now under arrest and in my custody until your hearing."

"What was that all about?" Neal asks in a low voice, jerking his head at where people are leaving the conference room.

"Told you," Peter says, his voice quiet as well. "Gold star for me. I have a performance review the same day as your hearing. All goes well," his eyes flick to Hughes' office, "I get that office and Hughes moves up too."

"Gonna warn me not to screw it up for you?" Neal asks, and Peter smiles.

"You haven't got that kind of power," he says. "Come on, we're going home."

Home is actually Neal's apartment, first. Neal pretends to have trouble getting the door open, to give Mozzie time to bolt, but he didn't have to worry; Moz is gone, along with all of his things. What remains is Neal's: half a shelf of books, a box of art supplies, a bicycle, and a closet full of clothing, though all his costumes are gone. Some CDs, a laptop.

Neal doesn't own a laptop. Neither does Mozzie.

Peter looks around. "This is different."

"Roommate moved out," Neal murmurs, hand drifting over the neatly packed box of art supplies.

"Take what you need," Peter says.

This is a kindness, Neal realizes. Peter didn't have to do this. Probably shouldn't have done this.

He packs the clothing neatly in a suitcase (he didn't own that before today either) and eyes the kitchen things and his bike before deciding the next tenant can have them. Tucks the laptop into his messenger bag along with a few of the books, and lifts the art box. Inside it somewhere, a bottle of wine clinks gently against his brushes.

"Okay," he says. Everything he owns fits in a suitcase, a single box, and the bag over his shoulder. On the other hand, when he came to New York everything he owned fit into his pockets, so this is perhaps an improvement.

\---

Elizabeth cooks dinner that night; Peter and Neal do the dishes.

"Am I ever off dish duty?" Neal asks lightly. He's washing this time, Peter drying.

"Nope," Peter says cheerfully.

"Good to know. Want me to walk the dog, too?"

"If you feel like it," Peter replies.

The thing about Peter is that Neal isn't sure when he's oblivious and when he's just really, really good at hiding that he can read Neal like a book. Maybe Peter's just happy Neal's going to take Satchmo out, or maybe Peter knows why Neal wants to leave the house and is giving him his space. It's deeply unsettling, especially when he sees Peter turn on his own laptop just as Neal's leaving. He's going to watch him walk the dog.

Two blocks out, with Satchmo stopping to inspect every tree and lamp-post, Mozzie joins him.

"Are you out of your _freakin' mind_?" Mozzie asks, before he even says hello. "When I told you to fix this I meant get over your crush on the Suit, not confess your sins, you moron."

"Nice trick with the phone today," Neal replies.

"You are. You are out of your mind. What is this? Let me see this," Mozzie says, bending and grabbing at Neal's ankle. "I could pick this."

"Don't," Neal pulls away.

"Is this a con? This had better be a con," Mozzie continues.

"It's not a con, Moz. You were right, I have...things I gotta work out," Neal says, because he really isn't even sure what to call all this.

"You had to get arrested to work things out? Argh, now they have your fingerprints," Mozzie groans, though Neal recalls that Peter did not, in fact, have him printed.

"Relax," Neal says, letting Satchmo get friendly with a nearby shrub. "Look, all I confessed to was the bonds. I kept your name out of it, and I'm not gonna rat on you. They can't give me much based on what I gave them, and if I have to I can run."

"You are _living_ in a _house_ with a _federal agent!_ " Mozzie hisses. He's really going to town with the italics. Also, he seems to have picked up a lot of information. Neal wonders if Mozzie has a mole in the justice system.

"Yeah, and I'm going to be spending all my time in an FBI office, working on FBI cases, studying crime," Neal points out.

"That's no excuse!"

"Mozzie, please," Neal says, and starts walking again so that Peter won't get suspicious. "It's just something I had to do. I don't know why, okay? I can't defend this to you. I just had to."

"That's not an excuse either," Mozzie sulks.

"Yeah, well, it's done now. I promise I won't get you involved."

"It's not safe," Mozzie presses. Neal laughs a little.

"Nothing we've ever done has been safe."

"Your last accomplice didn't carry a gun."

" _You_ were my last accomplice," Neal says.

"My point exactly!"

Neal stops and turns to him, sighing.

"Okay. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to tell you. You want to explain the laptop to me?" he asks.

"It's heavy-encrypted. You can email me from it safely," he says. "I'm not going to abandon you just because you've gone insane. If you need help, send me a line."

This is -- this is severing ties, Neal thinks. He's not going to see Mozzie again unless he asks for it. This is the one thing he really, truly regrets giving up.

"Be seein' ya, Moz," he says sadly.

"Not if I can help it," Mozzie grumbles, but he hugs Neal tightly before he walks away.

When Neal returns, Peter is on the sofa, watching a ball game. "Good walk?"

"Satchmo enjoyed himself," Neal says. "You need me?"

"Nah. Go, unpack," Peter waves a hand.

Upstairs, Elizabeth is in their bedroom, talking on a cellphone and typing at the same time. It sounds like she's trying to convince someone of something, so Neal quietly slips past to the guestroom, to his bedroom, and begins hanging up his clothes. It's mindless, but it leaves him too much space to think, so he stops halfway through and begins unpacking the other box instead, the one with his brushes and paints, his crayons and sketchpad and graphite and charcoal. Tucked into the subtly ripped-open seam of his brush roll is his case of lockpicks. The wine bottle is a good vintage, one of his favorites, and he knows Mozzie left him that one out of their mutual collection on purpose. He tucks it in the closet, on a high shelf.

He's unpacking his books from the messenger bag, still ignoring the laptop, when Elizabeth puts her head in the doorway.

"Settling in?" she asks. "Peter's got the game on downstairs, I think, you can come watch with us if you want."

"Not a big sports fan," Neal says, giving her a smile. She smiles back.

"Suit yourself," she says with a shrug, and disappears downstairs. Neal places his books carefully on the shelf -- most of the books there are spy thrillers, probably Peter's, and some beach reading novels that he guesses belong to Elizabeth. His copy of Dante's Divine Comedy looks a little weird next to them, but the Inferno in particular is comfort reading, in a strange way, and it's been in worse places than this.

\---

Things move very quickly after that. Friday morning, Neal is sentenced to five years for felony fraud, remanded into the custody of Peter Burke on work release. Friday afternoon, Peter has his performance review and officially accepts a promotion to ASAC. Neal would wonder about the timing, but he doesn't think even Peter is that good at manipulation.

Or is he?

At any rate, that evening Peter brings Chinese home for dinner, which apparently is his version of "celebrating" -- Neal will admit it is very good Chinese -- and the three of them eat and have wine and sit and talk. Like ordinary people, like Neal is not now a felon and Peter is not his jailer.

Neal watches for the undercurrents he's sure must be there, tensions and worries and fears, but neither Peter nor Elizabeth seem concerned. And when he tries to put a name to his own concerns, he finds he can't. There's no reason for him to be afraid. Peter has explained to him, every step of the way, what will happen; Peter has protected him from Hughes and testified on his behalf at his hearing. ("Frankly, I think putting him in prison is a waste of his talents. Let him earn his way out. We can use him. Besides, prison couldn't hold him." "And you can, Agent Burke?" "What, keep him in line? Oh, yeah. Not a problem.")

That night, Neal stays up late reading, resisting sleep; any other Friday night he'd be out hustling a deal or at a club or doing something interesting, but ten pm is his curfew and the real parties, the ones where he can find work or flirt or have fun, those don't even get started until past midnight. He could sneak out, but his anklet is currently set to the boundaries of Peter and Elizabeth's house, and won't be adjusted until Monday. If then.

Anyway, where would he go?

It's almost midnight when he sets the book aside; he can, at least, raid their fridge and have a snack before bed. His stealth in opening his door and creeping down the hall to the stairs is, of course, merely a matter of manners. He doesn't want to wake Peter and Elizabeth.

Just as he reaches the stairs he hears it, though -- a laugh, Peter's voice, and then a soft cry.

Oh. _Oh._ He freezes, well aware he shouldn't, that he should retreat to his bedroom. It wasn't as if he couldn't see the way Elizabeth looked at her husband that evening, the way Peter watched her mouth. He hears Elizabeth moan, and then Peter's voice, too low to distinguish words but clearly in the affirmative to something.

He presses his hand sharply against his stomach, like he could deny his reaction to the sounds, to the images that flash across his mind. Unclenches his other hand from the banister carefully and steps backwards, avoiding the squeaky floorboard he'd noticed earlier and the creak near the bathroom. Back to his bedroom, where he can't hear anything.

He drifts around the room, though, uncomfortable with sleep now. Because -- he really didn't plan very far ahead when he came here to confess, and he's put Peter and Elizabeth's lives in uproar. Clearly having him here will change things for them, so why is he putting Peter in this position?

He's been trying to impress Peter for what, two years now? Trying to be the cleverest, most interesting prey Peter has ever had or will ever have, and then he just...gave in, all at once, like a building crashing down. What did he think would happen? What did he even want?

Peter's approval. Being the best con man, that's just another liar's art; Neal can beat anyone in a single challenge, and staying on top is boring. Peter is a concrete measure of worth, and it doesn't matter now that his worth is to be measured by efficiency on this side of the law rather than effectiveness on the other. For the first time in a long time, he has a purpose that is not defined by his own will, and maybe he has something to live up to.

The idea is frightening. Terrifying. Expectation is something to be shied away from and escaped, because the punishment for not fulfilling it --

Suddenly the bedroom is too small, much too small, and with no easy escape. Neal opens the window and leans out, quickly, drawing in cold air, eyes closed. His breath is coming too fast, heart racing. He tells himself Peter worked hard to keep him out of prison, Peter whose job it was to put him _in_ prison. Mischief, that Peter might punish; failure won't earn him a harsh sentence. Disappointment, perhaps, but that's all, and Neal can tolerate that. He can. And he's a grown man now, not a child, and if Peter did try to hurt him he could defend himself.

"Neal?" a voice asks, and there's a hand on the small of his back. He starts, head thudding against the bottom of the open window, which makes stars dance in front of his eyes for a moment. He turns, ready to defend himself if necessary, but it's only Peter, hands upraised in innocence.

"You startled me," Neal says, rubbing the back of his head. It stings, burns, makes his eyes hurt.

"Planning on a quick trip?" Peter asks, lowering his hands and nodding at the window. Neal exhales, trying to calm his still-thudding heart. He should have heard Peter coming.

"Room was stuffy," Neal says, quiet, lowering his head. "Did you want something?"

"Heard the window open," Peter replies. Neal notices he's barely-dressed, a pair of sweatpants sliding down his hips, no shirt. Oh, _Jesus_ , Peter got out of his bed with his wife, left sex behind, to come make sure Neal wasn't escaping.

"I wasn't trying to run," Neal says. He gestures at the tracker on his ankle, uncut, the light solid green. "I just wanted some air."

Peter nods. "Sorry. First few days with someone in the house, I'm usually on a hair-trigger. It'll pass. Get some sleep."

Neal nods. "Sorry to wake you." A polite lie, for the sake of both their pride.

Peter smiles. "Don't worry about it."

Neal waits until he's gone, waits until he hears the other bedroom door close, before he climbs into bed. He tries not to think about what he heard, or what he could hear again if he crept out to the stairway. He tries to sleep.

It takes a long time.

\---

Neal sleeps in the next morning and wakes with a dull ache at the back of his head, a small knot where he bashed it against the window. Peter and Elizabeth are still asleep as well, apparently; the house is quiet, the kitchen empty. He checks the freezer and finds a couple of medical gel-packs in the door, wrapping one in a tea towel and holding it to the back of his head with one hand, taking the milk out of the fridge and pouring himself a glass with the other. Satchmo bumps his way through the kitchen door, sniffs the backs of Neal's legs, and then bonks his head against Neal's knee insistently. He gets the message, and lets Satchmo out the back door.

The quiet -- like everything in this house, it seems -- makes him think of his childhood. Running with Mozzie, he rarely woke before noon, out late the night before; when he and Kate had lived together, briefly, before she left, she would be up and humming and cooking breakfast when he woke. Breakfast was Kate's job, dinner was Neal's, and they compromised on the rest; that was how it worked.

But when he was a little kid, really little, he'd get up early on Saturday and get himself some cereal for breakfast, or a piece of bread with peanut butter (not allowed to use the toaster yet) and turn the TV on. Volume low, sitting right up close to hear it, it was like he was in the TV. GI Joe and M.A.S.K. and the Snorks and the Super Friends. Anything to avoid Schoolhouse Rock, because Neal spent all week in school and didn't want to spend his _Saturdays_ learning as well. Even at six years old, he knew when he was being bullshitted.

The peanut butter isn't hard to find.

He takes his bread and peanut butter into the living room and sits down on the couch, feet propped on the edge of the coffee table, head against the wall to hold the ice pack in place. Peter and Elizabeth have satellite, but out of habit he checks the network channels first. There's some truly dreadful animated television on, and he flips over to the news instead, but it's too early for disasters to be happening. The educational channels are all running documentaries on either Hitler or Jesus. He flips back to the animated TV. There's a dancing yellow...thing on the TV yelling "PIKA! PIKA!"

He turns the volume down when he hears someone on the stairs; Elizabeth appears in the living room and unceremoniously flops down on the couch next to him in her pajamas.

"Snorks or Super Friends?" he asks. "I could never figure out which I wanted to watch."

She laughs. "Snorks, then the second half of the Super Friends." Good answer. Neal should have thought of that when he was five. "But my one true passion was the Gummi Bears. What's this all about?" she adds, fingering the edge of the tea towel behind his head.

"Bumped my head last night," he says, bowing his head forward -- the ice pack's mostly warm now anyway, and he sets it aside. "No big."

"Want me to take a look?"

He grins and shakes his head. "It's fine. I'm hard-headed."

"Yes, we noticed," she says, which is cryptic and strange, but Neal has his mouth full of peanut butter and doesn't know how he'd reply to that, anyway. "Peter checked up on you last night."

"Yeah, sorry. The room was stuffy, I was just opening the window."

She nods, looking only slightly skeptical. "How are you adjusting?"

He could confess to her that he's freaked out and knows it's for no good reason, or he could say it's strange, or he could even say it's fine. He turns each option over quickly and decides she wouldn't believe two of them and he's not in a strong enough position yet to tell the truth. The art of the con is in knowing how much truth to tell as much as it is how to tell it. So he puts on a grin and says, "It's different, that's for sure."

"You'll get used to it," she says, rubbing his arm. There's a scratch and whine at the back door. "I'll get it."

Satchmo comes in and stops momentarily in the corridor between living room and stairway; after a second he barks joyfully and Neal can hear Peter on the stairs.

"Hey, buddy," Peter says, and dives for Satchmo, who tries to dart out of the way. Peter wrestles him to the ground and the two tumble around for a few minutes, while Elizabeth watches fondly. Eventually Peter reaches out and grabs a pair of battered sneakers, pulling them on.

"Saturday morning run," he says to Neal, who is openly staring. Satchmo is dancing around the door, barking. "El, bagels or kolaches?"

"Kolaches," she calls. "Some of those little apple ones."

"Neal, you good with kolaches?" Peter asks, slinging Satchmo's leash down from the hook near the door.

"Sure," Neal says agreeably, mildly.

"You want to come along?" Peter asks.

"No, uh, I'm good."

"Okay. Back in thirty," Peter says, and he and Satch disappear out the door. Elizabeth comes back to the couch and flips the television over to some show where a bunch of English guys are talking about cars. Neal's mind drifts, pleasantly, a little sleepily, until Peter returns, sweaty, triumphant, carrying a large paper bag. Satchmo immediately runs for his water dish.

At the table, Peter passes Neal a slightly greasy packet from inside the bag; two sausage kolaches and one stuffed with strawberries, dusted with powdered sugar, damp with juice. Perfect.

"Can I ask something?" Neal says, as Peter shoves half a strawberry kolache into his mouth all at once. Peter nods, licking his fingers. Elizabeth looks slightly despairing, but she has cinnamon on the corner of her mouth from one of the apple ones. "Do you really seriously want me here for five years? In the house, I mean. Seems like it would put a cramp in your style, you know?"

Peter shrugs and swallows, belting down some coffee. "I want you where I can keep an eye on you, for now. You don't want to stay, we can revisit it in a few months, see if you've earned that privilege. Get you your own place, you have a housing allowance. If I think it's best." He gives Neal a level look. "You want to stay here, you have five years guaranteed. I'm a lot more likely to cramp your style than you are to affect mine. Next week," he adds, around another huge mouthful of kolache, "you come running with me."

He slaps Neal on the arm and gets up, finishing his coffee. "Hon, you want the shower?"

"Go," Elizabeth tells him. "You reek."

Peter just grunts and bends over, kissing her neck, and Elizabeth shrieks and shoves him away. Neal can't help himself; he laughs.

Neither of them show it outwardly -- they don't pause, don't even look in his direction, but he can tell they're conscious of it. He can't tell whether it's good or bad. He distracts himself with the rest of his breakfast, but when he looks up again, Elizabeth is smiling.

This might work. It might. If he can keep his act together, he might get to stay here, in this house with its sunny dining room and clean kitchen and his room, with the green quilt and the good afternoon light, and Peter and Elizabeth. And the warm feeling inside, calming the restlessness.

This might work.


	3. Call Me Burger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a note -- bit of a cliffhanger on this one. Not really, but I ended it in kind of an uneasy place. I'm working on the next chapter, but it won't be out for a while.

Peter spends all weekend going over files, working on his laptop, preparing for his new position with the Bureau. It's quiet; it's pleasant, really, and Neal figures it's the last rest he's likely to get for a while, so he basks in his idleness as much as he can (and the rest of the time, does the Sudoku, since Peter has eternal dibs on the crossword).

On Monday, Neal officially begins work at the FBI -- he has his photo taken for a consultant's ID, fills out two different nondisclosure agreements, and gets his keycard for the downstairs security desk. Peter, meanwhile, begins the handover between himself and his old ASAC, who is moving on to another field office. In a way, Neal thinks, the chaos they're stepping into is good. Peter has worked with various agents, and he spearheaded the group chasing Neal, but now he's going to get his own stable team of agents, and at the moment everyone wants to be on Peter's dance card.

Peter is very good at this, it seems.

Neal's in, of course. And Ressling, Peter's probie. Neal, helping with the paperwork, discovers her first name is Candida, which is an excellent reason to go by Ressling, because nobody wants to be Agent Candy. She's been with the White Collar division all of four weeks, and she's getting some envious looks from other agents.

Then there's Jack Franklin, who's only been in New York a year, transferred in from Chicago. Franklin's a big dude, rough around the edges but he seems friendly enough, and Peter says he's got a flawless record and he's good at cultivating contacts. Neal can see where they're going, now: Peter's a new ASAC, he has a new probie and a consultant nobody really trusts. He's building a team of people who have to prove themselves. Sink or swim time; Neal thinks about old stories of invaders in a new country burning the boats so they couldn't retreat.

Finally, Peter taps Marguerite Reyes, who ran with the team that was chasing Neal. He knows her, or at least knows of her, and she knows him. When they assemble in the conference room for the first time, on Tuesday morning, Ressling still ignores Neal, but Reyes offers him her hand.

"Nice to finally meet you," she says, as they shake. "Welcome to White Collar."

Behind her, Ressling rolls her eyes. This should be interesting.

"A pleasure to put a face to the name," Neal replies. Reyes is a few years older than him, with a long tidy sweep of brown hair and a very slight accent that he thinks indicates a childhood spent speaking Spanish.

"I'd like to pick your brain sometime," she continues.

"Anything outside the statute of limitations," he promises her.

"Whenever you're done making friends," Peter interrupts, sweeping in. Franklin's already sitting, one leg cocked up on his knee, looking relaxed -- like he deserves to be here. Ressling takes a seat next to him, and Neal pulls out a chair for Reyes, who looks surprised. Neal just cocks a hip against the table and leans, while Peter tosses a box of files in front of them. "We're jumping in hard and fast, so I expect everyone's top game. Seeing as we've closed the Caffrey case," he adds, and Neal grins, "that leaves us with three active cases, two colds, and a slot for a fourth if we can make any headway. And I do expect us to make headway. Caffrey, sit."

Neal finds himself sitting before he can get smart about it. Franklin snorts.

"Ressling, jewels, go," Peter says, and Ressling leans forward.

"Two months ago, we got a jewel thief kicked over to us from," she pauses delicately, "the Cruise Ship unit."

"You guys have a _cruise ship_ unit?" Neal interrupts. "How do I get reassigned there?"

"They belong to Violent Crimes. About a dozen US citizens go missing from cruise ships yearly," Peter informs him. "They also handle piracy and assault in international waters against citizens. Speak when spoken to. Ressling?"

"They started seeing a pattern in some of their case files. It sounds like a con," Ressling continues. "Accounts are a little messy since some of these people don't want to admit what happened, but it seems like the general profile is pretty standard. A beautiful woman approaches the victim or victims on a cruise ship, attaches herself, makes friendly. They go ashore in a port of call and she convinces the victim or victims to purchase an expensive piece of jewelery, or several, depending on the circumstances. She then seduces the buyer the night before the ship reaches its destination and at some point during the night leaves the ship entirely. Some people don't want to report it because they bought the jewelery on the black market. Some don't like to admit they were seduced."

"Men or women?" Franklin asks.

"Mostly men," Ressling replies. "A few couples."

"What happens offshore stays offshore," Reyes murmurs.

"One or two women, but we're having a hard time confirming that because they're married and didn't want to come forward," Ressling says. "There's a lot of shame involved."

Neal has a sudden very bad feeling about this case, because he's pretty sure he knows who's doing this.

"So why is this our problem?" Franklin asks. "Why New York, I mean?"

"She seems to operate primarily on ships either leaving from or sailing to New York," Ressling says. "It's a pretty safe guess it's her home turf."

"Got any sketches? Photos?" Reyes asks. Ressling leans over to rummage in the file box and produces five sheets of paper, each with a different woman on them. In some she has long blond hair; in others, short black hair. Sometimes she has sunglasses on, other times her eyes are blue or brown or green.

But Neal knows the face. Alexandra.

"I think the term _mistress of disguise_ applies," Ressling says. "So far, all that's been done is an official alert to ships leaving from or docking in and around New York."

"You think that's going to stop her?" Peter asks.

"Are...are you asking me?" Ressling says, suddenly unsure. Peter nods. "No. Nobody reads that crap. People go on vacation to have a good time. She shows them a good time."

"Okay, hold that thought and we'll get back to this. Mar, are you up to speed on the insurance fraud?"

"I'm bored out of my mind on the insurance fraud," Reyes says. "Blah blah, large corporation selling cheap insurance in poor neighborhoods, blah blah, they never pay out. I don't think this one's going to be difficult. It's just a matter of compiling paperwork."

"So let's get some agents watching them and see if we can get an opening into the company," Peter says. "I don't want this on the back burner, but until we have more information, just keep gathering. Aaand Jack," Peter finishes, turning to Franklin. "With a case we what, stole from Interpol?"

"Steal, that's such a harsh word," Jack says. "I like to think we took it off their hands for them. Someone's counterfeiting Euros. He's very sneaky, very slippery, and word is he's subcontracting some of the work to Adrian Tulane."

Neal whistles low. Everyone glances at him. "What? Tulane's a legend."

"He fakes up the Euros here, in the states," Jack continues. "Then he launders them through a variety of sources, here and overseas. The Euro's not always stable to start with, y'know? His fake shit's been showing up in Vegas, Atlantic City, Chicago, New York, and of course various European cities. One of his guys got busted flying out of New York with a suitcase full of the fakes, so I snatched the case from Interpol and planted a flag in it."

"Sure that's making us popular," Peter said.

"Well, this ain't the diplomatic corps," Jack replies. Neal grins at him.

"You think we'll get any headway out of the guy they pinched at the airport?" Peter asked.

"Not after he hung himself in his cell, no," Jack says. Peter frowns. Neal frowns too, because if someone hangs themselves while in federal custody, that means whoever they were working for is scarier than the feds. And the feds, despite all appearances, are pretty damn scary.

"Okay. We're multitasking here. Mar, can you babysit the insurance fraud?"

"Sure," she says. "Piece of cake."

"Ressling, I want a strategy writeup on the cruise ship thing by tomorrow morning. Approaches, potential suspects, ideas for making this more public, putting this woman in a corner. Work with Neal on that this afternoon. In the meantime, let's brainstorm on these Euros," Peter says, pulling out a pile of folders and sifting through them, passing around copies of the case.

There's not much to go on, with the Euros, but Peter has a few ideas and Marguerite has some suggestions too. Neal gives his opinion when he thinks it'll mean something, but if Tulane's just doing the art, there's not much he has to add. It looks like Tulane's work. Neal's never had a chance to study any of it up close, so he takes his time now, eyeing the workmanship while the others talk.

Just before lunch, Peter closes his folder and rubs his eyes.

"Okay. Neal and Ressling, get started on the cruise ships after lunch, but once you're rolling, Ressling, take over and show Neal where the new cases are. Neal, find me something interesting to chew on. Mar -- "

"Fraud teams," Marguerite says. "On it."

"Good. Hook up with Jack if you hit a wall. Jack, I want you to run down everyone who talked with our counterfeit-smuggling perp before he hung himself. Get new statements. I have..." Peter sighs. "A million pages of paperwork to file before we go official. Let's hit the ground running. Go, eat, work hard."

Ressling seems disinclined to a working lunch, and Neal figures she's putting off working with him until she can get some ideas of her own underway, so he lets Marguerite buy him lunch and pick his brain, like she wanted. She's very thorough about it; she knows his case almost as well as Peter does, and if she's smarting that Peter kept the arrest from her at first, she's not showing it. Neal dances around the truth, figuring out what is and isn't safe to tell her. He tries to distract her, but Marguerite isn't the type to be distracted.

For all her suspicions of him, Ressling is a little easier to redirect. Outright charm probably won't work, so that afternoon he's quiet and subtle about it. He doesn't exactly win her over, but by quitting time he's made her laugh. Once. Well, baby steps.

"Ressling!" Peter calls, promptly at five thirty. "Quitting time. Making any progress?"

"Some, I think," she replies, as Peter descends to the bullpen. He's been in a conference with Jack for the last half-hour, and neither man looks pleased at their lack of progress.

"Good. Knock off and go home. Neal, you find me anything new?"

Neal taps a box of files. "Thought I'd do some homework. Agent Ressling kept me busy."

"Grab 'em and let's go, then. Mar?"

"Already out," Marguerite calls, zipping up her coat. Peter gives Jack a slap on the shoulder and says something quietly to him; Jack laughs and nods. Neal gathers up his box of files and follows Peter out, down to the parking garage.

Part of him is still back on the cruise ship case, and has been for most of the afternoon. He will say this for the idea of "playing by the rules" -- it makes it more interesting to find loopholes. After all, any information he could give them on Alex would be circumstantial, and he isn't being paid to be a snitch, just to consult. He could, he supposes, "consult" them into finding her, but he's not going to turn on a friend. He will be as helpful as he can, on the case, as long as he doesn't have to mention her name or certain other facts he knows about Alex that they don't.

The more difficult question is whether to warn Alex or not. He won't have a chance to meet with her or get a message to her directly, but there's that laptop at home, the one with the heavy encryption, the one he could use to email Mozzie and tell him to warn Alex that things are heating up. That might score him a few points with Mozzie, too. On the other hand, Peter needs to win one fast, and Alex is shinier than insurance fraud.

He thinks about it on the ride home, while Peter listens to a ball game on the radio and drives like he has no fear of death, but when they arrive home he puts it deliberately out of his mind. There's dinner and Elizabeth and talk of the day, and he doesn't want Peter to see his preoccupation.

"So, how was your first day?" Elizabeth asks, winking at him. It's an opening to tease Peter, and he knows it, but he has to be careful. He walks right along the edge of propriety, never tipping over, and by the end of the meal Peter's ears are red, but he's grinning.

"Movie night," Elizabeth says, as Neal clears the plates away. "Neal, you in?"

Neal stifles the instinctive urge for his eyes to flick up, through the ceiling, to where the laptop sits still unopened on his desk. He looks instead at Peter, who seems to be vaguely pleading for something, covertly. Neal knows that look -- it's the look of a man silently asking his fellow man to do him a solid for a girl. Peter wants movie night with his wife.

"Homework," he says, tipping his head at the file box sitting on the stairs.

"Well, if you get bored, come down," Elizabeth replies. Neal gives her a winning smile. He really likes Elizabeth.

Peter waits to make his gratitude known until they're washing the dishes; he doesn't say anything, but he gives Neal a look, a look that says both _I know what you did_ and _I know you know I'm grateful._ It feels...strangely satisfying, this little altruism. Half of it is that if he had said he wanted to watch some movie with them, Peter would have let him. The other half is a mystery.

He goes upstairs after that, and with a deep breath he opens the laptop. It lights up, some strange and unknown operating system booting it quickly. All he gets once it's done is a blank email -- he doesn't even recognize whether it's webmail or some program.

It takes him a while to figure out what to write. He isn't sure whether to send some long, amusing missive about this strange new life, or keep it serious and bare his soul, or just send a few quick telegram sentences: _Thought you should know, feds on to Alex. Tell her to cool it before she gets pinched. Details to follow as required. NC._

He settles for something unsatisfyingly in the middle -- uses warning Alex as an excuse to write, talks a little about how weird and hard this is, ends with a joke. He hits send before he can bail on the whole idea.

When he's done, he cat-foots it down the stairs, sitting on the third-to-bottom step, because it's quiet and lonely upstairs. He can hear Peter and Elizabeth talking and see light and shadow moving on the wall as the television images shift, but that's all. Peter laughs at something; Elizabeth says something quiet, and Peter grunts agreement.

"I should check on Caffrey," Peter says after a while, and Neal gets ready to either scramble back up to his room or make an entrance in search of a glass of water. It's not after his curfew yet, but he doesn't think eavesdropping would go over big.

"Neal is fine," Elizabeth replies. "He's not five."

"That's what worries me," Peter answers.

"He won't run," Elizabeth says confidently.

"Damn right he won't," Peter announces, and Neal stifles a laugh.

"How'd he do?"

There's a long pause. "He did good, actually. Kept quiet, helped out. You should see him work the office. He's definitely making friends."

"So your worries were unfounded?" Elizabeth asks, sounding affectionate.

"I wasn't worried," Peter says.

"Honey, you were like a parent on the first day of school. _What if Neal gets bullied by the other kids?_ Besides, you have three other people to worry about now, too."

Neal basks in this a little. It might insult his competence, but it's nice to know Peter worried about him.

"Ressling's going to be a problem," Peter muses. "She's sharp but she's not a team player."

"Neither were you."

There's a snort of guilty laughter from Peter. "Okay, point taken." Silence for a beat. "I really should check on Neal."

Neal, on impulse, stands and thumps the last few steps down the stairs. He can see Peter crane his head around the bookcase the couch is pushed up against.

"How're those files coming?" Peter asks. Neal wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, now you see why I stuck you with that job. You need anything?"

"Just getting some water," Neal says, heading for the kitchen.

\---

Over the course of the week, Peter's team falls into a rhythm that's almost eerie. They're busting their asses on the Euros case, while Alex's file (thankfully) languishes in Peter's Open Case box, and Marguerite rides herd on the insurance fraud investigation. The case Neal found for them, reading late into the night, is a string of cat burglaries that Peter really likes sinking his teeth into, but by the time they hit Friday they're only just getting all the information in order.

It's a weird little dynamic they're working out. Jack and Mar are constantly shit-talking at each other, egging each other on, in a way that's friendly but nevertheless a little competitive too -- they're the big kids wrestling each other for Peter's attention. Ressling is a hardass around Neal but withdrawn and uncertain whenever Peter addresses her, like she's afraid her whole assignment is an exam of some kind. Neal and Mar are friendly but sort of distant, not hostile but not exactly getting any friendlier, whereas Jack seems fascinated by Neal on a purely technical level, intrigued by the tricks Neal can do and the skills he's acquired. Which is flattering to Neal's vanity and lets him show off a lot, but doesn't endear either one of them to Peter, who tolerates their horsing around with a look that says one foot over the line and he'll kick both their asses.

Peter is everywhere at once, and if Neal was impressed with him before, he's doubly so now. He almost regrets all the shit he pulled on Peter over the years, because Peter's time is precious and his mind works at a constant double-march. It's tiring to watch, sometimes.

Neal checks the encrypted email on the laptop nightly. No response from Mozzie. On the other hand, no new reports of cruise-ship fraud, so perhaps the message got through.

Friday afternoon, while Neal and Mar are throwing around ideas for a more active approach to the insurance fraud (and Neal is juggling rubber-band balls idly), Peter ends up at Neal's desk, catching one of them out of the air. Neal lets the other two fall into his hands and gives Peter a mildly annoyed look. Marguerite, glancing from one to the other, excuses herself with a grin and goes to harass Jack.

"Thought I should let you know I'm taking Elizabeth out tonight," Peter says.

"Yeah? That's good," Neal replies, a little wary.

"I think so. Dinner, dancing, all that stuff," Peter waves a hand. Neal grins. "So you're home alone."

"First time. Sure you don't want to hire a babysitter for me?"

"Don't tempt me." Peter leans on his desk. "Ressling could probably use the extra cash."

"Promise I'll be good," Neal tells him.

"You'd better. I'm not bringing my wife home from a date and then running after your ass on a Friday night."

"Maybe I'll go out too," Neal says. "Within my radius," he adds, when Peter gives him a warning look. Neal's radius is pretty generous; two miles in any direction from the house. There's not a _lot_ to do around there, but there's enough to keep Neal occupied.

"Keep out of trouble and you can do what you want," Peter tells him. "Come on. Time to ditch crime for the weekend."

When they get home, Elizabeth is already dressed to go out -- Neal has a weird sense of deja vu, remembering seeing her for the first time and thinking what a knockout she was. He glances at Peter, who looks downright _hungry._

"Twenty minutes," Peter says, and kisses her on the cheek and runs upstairs. Elizabeth composes herself on the couch, the skirt of her bright blue dress arranged over her knees, one leg hooked over the other, high-heeled foot swaying gently. Neal forgets not to stare until she glances at him and looks amused.

"You look great," he says sincerely, settling on the arm of the couch. Upstairs, he can hear the shower go on.

"I know," she answers, and laughs. Neal notices the earrings in her ears -- he'd be willing to bet they're real sapphires. Fakes just never have the right fire. "You won't be lonely, will you?"

"Nah." Neal shakes his head. "I'm going to toss the house, find out all your secrets, swipe your prescription medication, and eat the last package of popcorn."

"Well, just put Peter's pornography away when you're done with it," she replies composedly, and Neal feels himself _blush_. Peter might have caught him but Elizabeth just keeps catching him off guard. "Bottom drawer of the desk, on the left," she adds conspiratorially. Neal is ninety-nine percent sure she's joking -- after all, with a wife like her, Peter'd be crazy to _want_ porn -- but he's definitely going to check it once they leave. "So, first week -- thoughts?"

They talk about work, both his (less exciting than he thought, but pretty stimulating intellectually) and hers (running your own business is hard and stressful and she really, really is looking forward to tonight) until Peter comes down the stairs, dress shoes in hand. Neal didn't know Peter owned clothing that could make him look that good, but he's rocking a light brown suit and a cream-linen shirt open at the throat, and Neal approves. He approves a _lot._

"Ready?" he asks, pulling on his shoes and taking down Elizabeth's coat, holding it for her. "Neal, be good."

Neal rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I get it."

"If you ruin our date -- "

"Sweetie," Elizabeth says, quietly but more firmly than Neal would have expected. Peter falls silent. She kisses Neal on the cheek. "Don't wait up."

Neal watches them go, understanding for the first time that they aren't Peter The Guy Who Chased Me and Peter's Awesome Wife. They're an affluent middle-class couple, deeply in love, going out for a date because she's had a tough week and he's just been promoted. They're...normal. Neal feels blatantly alien, and the sharp stab of _difference_ is surprisingly hard to handle for a moment.

But then they're gone, and it's just him and Satchmo. It's the first time he's been alone, nobody else nearby, since he turned himself in.

When he checks the bottom drawer of Peter's desk, he finds a box with his name on it. Intrigued, he tips up the lid and starts laughing. It's Peter's file on him. He lifts it out gently and carries it to the living room, paging through folder after folder of intel, surveillance photos, travel receipts. There's a psychological workup of him done by some Bureau shrink, derisively annotated all over in Peter's handwriting. Timelines. Chains of evidence that never quite link up. Documentation of Neal's _shoe size._

"On paper, I'm pretty boring," he tells Satchmo, who is flopped at his feet, head on his shoes. Satchmo looks up at him and whines. Neal puts the box back, and goes to rummage through the rest of the desk. Just in case.

\---

He doesn't hear them come in on Friday night, but on Saturday morning he wakes up to Satchmo's enthusiastic barking.

Oh god. They're going running.

Still, he pulls on a pair of hand-me-down track pants from Peter, the closest thing he has to running gear, and a t-shirt, and goes downstairs to meet his doom. Peter is sitting on the floor by the door, ruffling Satchmo's fur affectionately, and he looks up and grins when he sees Neal. He tosses Neal the leash and Satchmo runs to him, butt-wiggling excitedly.

"HON!" Peter yells up the stairs. "GOING RUNNING!"

"Go easy on him!" Elizabeth's voice drifts down. Peter laughs. "I was talking to Neal!" she adds, and Neal grins as he attaches the leash to Satch's collar.

"Breakfast?" Neal asks, as they step out into the slight chill.

"Yeah, you know the little French bakery?" Peter says. Neal nods. He's been exploring his radius pretty thoroughly. "Okay, let's go."

Neal breaks into a run, Satchmo barreling along beside him, and he doesn't bother to look back and see if Peter is following. After all, that's what Peter has always done -- followed, studied, _chased_. Neal's not a fan of actual physical running, but if he has to do it he's going to --

Peter passes him easily. Neal stares for a second, then increases his stride. Peter's still ahead, loping along, and Neal starts to fight to keep up. Satchmo, that traitor, is trying to heel to Peter instead of to Neal, tugging on the leash, which in turn yanks on Neal's wrist.

If this is a challenge, Neal's not going to lose.

He's going all out when he finally catches up and passes Peter, about a block from the bakery they're supposed to be stopping at; he feels great for about two seconds, before Peter's hand closes on the waistband of his pants, curling up shirt and pants together and tugging him off-balance. He stumbles and tumbles backwards; Peter catches him with an arm around his chest, taking his weight for a few seconds before pushing him upright. Neal stares at him, stunned and hurt. He's never known Peter Burke to _cheat._

"Holy -- " Peter gasps, bending over and resting his hands on his knees. He's sweating hard, and Neal realizes that keeping ahead of him for that long took serious effort. Peter made it look so easy. "Kid, you are going to kill me."

"Next time, don't try to beat me," Neal says, stung. He rubs the small of his back, where Peter's knuckles knocked against his spine as he forcibly braked them both. Peter, to add insult to injury, laughs.

"Predictable," he says, straightening, catching his breath. "Come on, let's eat."

Neal puzzles this over as he follows Peter into the bakery, Satchmo tugging a little at his leash. There's a young woman behind the counter who waves as Peter walks in.

"Agent Burke," she says, beaming. "Good morning! Who's your friend?"

"Daniella, Neal Caffrey. Neal, Daniella. Neal's staying with us for a while," Peter says.

"Your usual?"

"Yeah, and whatever Neal wants."

"I'll have what he's having," Neal says. Daniella takes a bone-shaped biscuit out of a jar behind the counter and leans over to drop it into Satchmo's waiting jaws before she starts plucking up pastries, stuffing them into a white sack. A sullen-looking and anonymous boy further down does something intricate with a coffee machine. Peter pays cash, shoves a tip in the jar, and leaves Neal to collect the coffee, stepping back outside and throwing himself into a chair at a table on the narrow patio.

"So you know Agent Burke pretty well?" Neal says to Daniella, waiting for the coffee.

"Sure. Everyone knows him. We like having a policeman around," she replies. "Makes people feel safe. Are you with the FBI too?"

"More or less," he replies, giving her a smile. Daniella melts a little. Works every time. The sullen boy tosses the coffees onto the counter and stomps off.

"Don't mind him. He hates Saturday shifts," Daniella confides. "Hope to see you around, Agent Caffrey."

"Call me Neal," Neal says, because it's easier than trying to explain. Daniella's smile widens further.

"Okay, Neal," she agrees, and Neal turns to lead Satchmo outside.

Peter accepts his coffee and sips it, stretching his legs out, flexing his ankles. He casts an amused look across the table as Neal sits down too, hooking Satchmo's leash over a knob on the chair's back.

"So tell me," Peter says. "What do you think just happened back there, when we were running?"

"You cheated," Neal replies. Peter arches an eyebrow. "I was getting ahead, so you grabbed me."

"Well, actually, I was trying to slow you down before you blew a hamstring," Peter replies. "I meant before that."

Neal gives him a confused look. Peter leans forward, digging in the paper bag, and produces a croissant, passing it to Neal. A little bubble of cheese oozes out; Peter takes another for himself.

"This is running, not racing," he says. "Not everything's a competitive sport, Neal. You have to save some energy for the trip back."

Neal has the feeling they're not actually talking about running, but he's not sure what's underneath.

"I'm usually only going one direction," he ventures, as Peter chews on his breakfast.

"Yeah, I know. All out," Peter says. Neal bites into his croissant; ham and cheese. Pretty good, actually. "You took off like you thought if you slowed down something was going to eat you."

"I'm the best," Neal says. "I don't do half-measures."

"And that's laudable, sometimes, but you have to pace yourself. You do nothing but race, all the time, you're going to burn out," Peter tells him. Neal fiddles with the seam on his paper cup, unfolding a little of the rim.

"Don't you get tired?" he asks, not looking at Peter, who is pulling his croissant to pieces, popping bites into his mouth. "I get tired. But it's not like you don't...race, you wouldn't have caught me if you didn't."

"It's a marathon, not a sprint," Peter says. "It was, catching you. You know how many times I wanted to just grab you and shake you until a confession fell out? But that's not the way these things work. You raced, I ran, and look who won."

Neal can feel heat on his cheeks.

"You want to be the best, that's great," Peter says. "But if you're only the best until the other guy catches his breath, that's not so great."

"You didn't answer my question," Neal points out. Peter frowns. "Don't you get tired too? I mean, everything you do, it's everything you are. You're the best at what you do. I watched you, I know how hard you work. Doesn't it just wear you the hell out? It does me," he adds, looking down.

Peter smiles and shakes his head, sips his coffee. "Nope. Because I know how to stop and rest. Take my wife out for dinner. Go running on Saturday morning."

"Ah." Neal takes a bite of his croissant to hide the fact that he doesn't have any clue how to respond to that.

"That friend of yours, the one who sent you the phone," Peter says. "You trust him?"

Neal nods.

"You trust me?"

Harder question. Peter has kept every promise he's made, and Neal can't think of what it would take to make Peter cross the lines he's drawn for himself. But it's complicated by his own feelings, and his mistrust of those, and he's seen Peter manipulate people at least as skillfully as he can, without resorting to any of Neal's tactics.

"Okay," Peter says, when Neal hesitates a little too long. He doesn't look hurt; a little resigned, maybe. "Let me rephrase that. You see how I work. You trust me enough to listen to me when I tell you to slow down?"

Slowing down is dangerous. Slowing down means someone else might win.

But he's an adult, he's strong, and he can defend himself. If he has to, if things get too dangerous, he can bolt. Racing is always an option, especially if you're racing away from Peter Burke.

"Sure," he says, affecting ease. "Deal."

"Good." Peter nods. "Let's go home. This time, let me set the pace, okay?"

The run home is quiet, slower, but at the end of it Neal feels like he's accomplished something. He isn't even sure what.

\---

They start solving cases, Peter's little team of misfits. Neal revels in it; there's glory to be had here, and when you do something good for the FBI you get to brag about it. Being admired as a con among cons is one thing, but this is a totally different feeling. He's not just good at what he does. He's doing good, too. He didn't think he'd ever care about that, but it starts to matter to him. Peter's approval matters, of course, it's the most important thing, but even if Neal screws shit up, as long as he was trying, he gets that smile from Peter -- the one he never saw as a crook, the one he angles for. A few months pass; they still haven't caught Alex, but they're inching up on the guy forging the Euros, and the cat burglar and insurance fraudsters are long since caught. Life seems good. The work is hard, but it has its rewards. Neal gets to shine, legally, for perhaps the first time in his life.

Everything changes after Jimmy.

Marguerite is the one who brings Jimmy in, that first time. Neal knows she's been coaxing him along for weeks; usually if they have an informant it's because Jack ferreted them out, since Jack has a genius for making CIs feel safe, protected, helpful. With Jimmy, though, it's all Marguerite. She thinks she can build a case against the mob for harassing local businesses. Organized Crime is a department unto itself; Racketeering is considered White Collar's domain. The intersection of the two is messy, but hey, finders keepers.

"So, Jimmy," Peter says, seating himself in the conference room. Neal takes his customary seat on Peter's left; Marguerite is sitting with Jimmy across the table, giving him encouraging looks. "What can we do for you today?"

Jimmy is a lean, nervous-looking man in his thirties, well-groomed but with grease burns on his hands. He wears a t-shirt with a logo that reads CALL ME BURGER and Neal can see the line in his hair where, he's guessing, a paper hat sits most of the day.

"I want immunity," Jimmy blurts. Neal fights the urge to laugh.

"Well, that depends on the crime, and on what you can bring us," Peter says calmly. "Give me a hypothetical, Jimmy. If a guy like you was going to talk to a guy like me, what would he say he's done?"

Jimmy gives Mar a hesitant glance. She makes a _keep going_ motion.

"Well, hypothetically, say there's a guy who owns a diner with a big walk-in freezer," Jimmy says. Neal thinks this can't go anywhere good. "And say it's in a neighborhood where you have to pay a little fee every month to keep the locals from...getting casual about your windows."

"Local Italians, maybe?" Peter asks.

"Somethin' like that," Jimmy says with a rueful look. "See, Call Me Burger isn't exactly McDonalds, you know? We don't serve billions. And I got a little behind on my protection payments."

"Mob offer you a deal?" Neal asks. Peter shoots him a look, but Jimmy seems grateful someone else said it first.

"Yeah. Because, you know, when you got a big walk-in freezer, that's like free storage space, right? And if bundles show up there occasionally, or disappear a few days later, well, my staff know how to keep their lips zipped."

"What changed?" Peter asked. Jimmy looked down at his hands, rubbed a burn blister on the heel of his left palm.

"It stopped being a bundle," he said. "One morning I walk in to get some chicken for some nice fried chicken dinners -- we do chicken and waffles night, you know, that kind of thing -- and there's a body in my freezer. All wrapped up in plastic and staring at me."

"That has to be some kind of health code violation," Neal says, before he thinks about it. There's a furious glare from both Peter and Marguerite, but Jimmy actually looks up at him and then starts laughing hysterically.

"Health! Code! Health code violation!" he snorts, covering his mouth. He subsides gradually, but he gives Neal a grin. "I think you're the first person ever found anything funny about that stupid fucking body. Jesus, I'm so _screwed._ "

"All right, calm down," Mar murmurs, as Peter takes a break from glaring a hole in Neal's head to turn back to Jimmy.

"Well, that's definitely a problem, Jimmy," Peter says. "Here's the thing: what can you give us? _Somebody put a body in my freezer_ is interesting, but it's not much to go on."

"Ever since they started stashing stuff at my place, they come around a lot," Jimmy continues. "I don't mind giving 'em a free meal now and again, but they sit there at the diner counter and talk about all the shit they do. A guy could learn a lot, listening in on something like that. I know I have, for fuck's sake."

"What are we talking about? Hits? Drug running?"

Jimmy shrugs. "Drugs. Mostly the neighborhood racket. Who they gotta hit up next. I'm like the headquarters for Organized Assholes right now."

Peter cocks his head. Neal can tell he's thinking.

"Immunity's not a problem," he says finally, and Jimmy exhales slowly. "The worst we could hit you with is accessory after the fact, and you did report the crime. When did this happen?"

"Two weeks ago," Jimmy mumbles. "Body's long gone, they hauled it out the next day."

"Okay. I'm going to put together some people to work on this, file some papers, open a case," Peter continues. His voice is that soothing monotone he sinks into when he's dealing with nervous people -- Neal remembers it very clearly from the evening he confessed. "You okay with all this, Jimmy?"

Jimmy nods jerkily.

"Go back to your diner and treat this like it never happened. We'll look at what we can do and Marguerite will be in touch when we have an idea of how to handle this. Don't freak out on us, now."

"Sure," Jimmy says quietly, but Neal has zero confidence in this guy and he can tell Peter and Mar are worried about it too. When Jimmy's gone, Neal speaks before Peter can read him the riot act for that little health code violation remark.

"Let me go down to his place this afternoon," he says.

"Why?" Peter asks.

"The guy's on his last nerve. I can get a feel for how well he's going to handle this, maybe make him a little more at ease. Mar, no offense, but you're still an FBI agent. Jimmy and I, we know each others' type."

"That's not worrying at _all_ ," Peter drawls.

"Trust me. Don't you keep me around to be a sweet talker?" Neal says with a sunny smile. "Look, I'll go see if the burgers are any good, give Jimmy a little pep talk. You don't want me around while you're setting up the case anyway, all I do is get underfoot."

"He has a point," Peter says to Mar. "You mind Neal standing on your toes?"

"Please," Mar waves a hand. "If it gets Jimmy to stop wigging out, Caffrey's welcome to him. Guy's a bundle of neuroses wrapped in the smell of fry oil."

Call Me Burger is, as the name suggests, a burger joint, but Neal's not all that into hamburgers. He orders the ribs, discovers they're incredibly good, and once he's done licking the sauce off his fingers he slips into the kitchen, out to the back where Jimmy's having a smoke. Jimmy looks terrified, but Neal just grins.

"Look, I know where we met today," he says in a low voice, while Jimmy looks around frantically. "It's cool though, I'm not with them. I'm just a consultant. See?" he adds, and pulls up his pants leg, showing off the anklet. "I get how it is. I'm a working guy too."

Jimmy eyes him suspiciously. "What, are you here to blackmail me? Because I am fucking bone dry, man, you can't get blood from a stone."

Neal laughs. "Nah, I'm here to help you. You're scared, I know. But trust me, Peter and Mar, they're good people. They won't screw you. I'm just here to give you a hand if you need it."

Jimmy's relieved smile is momentary; it freezes when he glances over Neal's shoulder. Neal turns to find three large guys in cheap suits coming towards them.

"Hey, Jim," one of them says, slinging an arm around Jimmy's shoulders. The other two flank Neal, radiating just how much they'd love to beat the shit out of him. "Who's your pal?"

"Nick Halden," Neal says, giving them an easy smile. "Jimmy and I were just getting to know one another. You...businessmen have interests in Call Me Burger?"

Suspicious looks all round. Jimmy is practically trembling. Neal thinks so fast it almost hurts.

"Yeah, we're big fans of the place. Regular patrons. You ever try the ribs?" the guy with his arm over Jimmy's shoulders asks.

"I hear they're pretty fantastic," Neal says. "It's why I'm looking at becoming a regular patron around here. I'm in business for myself -- I hate offices. So corporate, you know? I like to do business somewhere casual. Comfortable."

"What's your line?" one of the others asks.

"Sports analysis," Neal replies.

One of the guys, apparently the brightest of them, laughs. "Bookie, huh?"

"I prefer to think of myself as a service provider," Neal tells them. "Why? You need some services provided? What, you like horses? Boxing?"

"This guy," one says. "Balls."

"Ah, cut the kid some slack, he looks like a bright guy," another replies. Jimmy, at least, seems calmer. "Halden, huh? You should know independent businessmen in these parts don't always do so well."

"Local taxes can be a pain," Neal agrees. He reaches into his pocket and peels off three fifty dollar bills -- it always pays to carry a few large bills, and he still has access to quite a few rainy-day accounts from before. He holds them up. "What if I were to...rent a table from you fine boys? Say, this security deposit, and twenty percent of the take?"

He's in.

Peter is furious, of course, but he can't really say it's a bad thing. Neal and Jimmy are now a team in harness, working Call Me Burger from both sides of the table. The FBI manages to take down the local mob platoon that was bothering Jimmy, and Neal hangs around because he's been running a pretty good book and the other bookies in the area think the place is a lucky charm now that the mafia are cleared out. Until the FBI gets them, too.

Jimmy's a good guy. He's friendly to Neal, and Neal likes him. Hell, Peter likes him; after his first bad bout with fear and guilt, Jimmy toughens up and becomes a pretty fine CI. Mar gets a lot of praise as his handler, even grudging compliments from Jack. Peter starts bringing home ribs for dinner once a week. Call Me Burger starts offering discounts to local cops.

Then Jimmy decides he ought to lend a hand to his meat supplier, who is taking some heat from a local drug-smuggling ring, and he tries to bug the gang's car. Without telling the FBI, without getting any help, like he's some goddamn superhero.

They find him on a wet Tuesday morning, dumped in the alley behind Call Me Burger, a hole the size of a .22 in his forehead.

Peter covers his face with one hand. Neal throws up behind the dumpster, which pisses off the crime scene techs. Marguerite cries, and Jack hugs her (both firsts). Ressling asks for a transfer to Bank Fraud later that day.

Everything changes.


	4. Dim About The Concept Of Teamwork

Jimmy dies on a Tuesday. Neal doesn't come in to work for the rest of the week. Peter doesn't even ask him to.

If it were just grief at losing a friend, it'd be okay. Jimmy's the first real not-in-the-FBI friend he's made since he cut this deal with Peter, but he'd recover, he'd work through it. And if it were just fear, since suddenly the idea that he might _die_ because of the FBI is real, that would be okay too. Neal's not accustomed to letting fear dislodge him from anywhere he wants to be. It's the combination of both that strangles him. There's guilt over being afraid for himself, over letting Jimmy's death be that lesson and thus become all about him; the grief makes the fear paralyzing, too. And of course he's a little humiliated that he puked when he saw Jimmy lying there, and guilty that he's humiliated, because Jimmy's dead, and all Neal did was lose his breakfast.

Tuesday night, they don't eat dinner. Peter and Elizabeth sit on the couch talking quietly, sipping wine, curled up against each other. Neal drifts aimlessly around, touching things, until Elizabeth calls him over and pulls him into her, his temple resting against her shoulder, Peter's arm around her body and his hand resting on the back of Neal's neck. Neal knows this can't be the first time Peter's seen someone he worked with die, because he's -- no, he's not calm, but he is controlled. Quiet. And Elizabeth is too familiar with what to do in this situation to be new at it. Neal wonders how many times they've done this.

"I should call Mar," Peter says after a while, but he doesn't get up. Elizabeth shifts, wriggling closer to him. "Make sure she's holding up okay."

"Jack took her home," Neal says quietly. Peter glances over Elizabeth's head at him.

"That's good, I guess," he replies.

Jimmy's dead. It's not that the FBI got him killed, his own stupid hubris got him killed, but if it weren't for the FBI he would probably still be alive. Neal's had his fair share of close calls in the last few months but they've never felt real. All of them feel real now. Neal could die. He's always fancied himself immortal. He used to tell Mozzie he intended to stay young forever.

Wednesday morning, Neal turns off his alarm and ignores Peter's knock on his door. The door opens; Peter sees he's in the bed, that he hasn't gone anywhere, and then he closes the door again. Neal can hear Elizabeth downstairs, working.

Eventually he gets out of bed because nature is insistently calling, and as long as he's in the bathroom he might as well try to wash off the thin layer of slime that it feels like yesterday has left on him. Downstairs, clean and damp, he fixes himself a bowl of cereal and sits at the table with Elizabeth, who gives him a smile and doesn't ask him why he's not at work. Even sitting quietly is exhausting. After a while he just...goes back to bed.

He doesn't shirk. He helps Elizabeth cook dinner, helps Peter do the dishes, listens to Peter talk about the workday and offers an opinion on one of the cases. He asks after Mar, who Peter says is coping, and smiles a little when Peter mentions offhandedly that the office misses him.

Thursday he's not hungry. He spends most of the day upstairs, asleep. Elizabeth makes him check his temperature to be sure he's not making himself sick, and Peter orders him to eat his goddamn dinner, so he does. He even sits through some movie Peter and Elizabeth are watching, though he has no idea what it's about. He watches them, instead, and is surprised to find he can see where Peter is fraying, where the calm is cracking and badly patched. Peter's struggling too.

It occurs to Neal he might be one of the _reasons_ Peter is struggling.

Friday he means to get up. He does. He struggles out of bed when his alarm goes off and he's halfway through his shower when his throat tightens and he can't breathe, the steam and heat are too much, the shower curtain is too close and there's not enough space, not nearly enough space. He staggers out of the shower and opens the tiny window, manages to get his robe around his shoulders before he's bent over the counter, gasping for breath. He's breathing so loud they can hear it in the other room, and when the door opens the rush of cold air is a relief, such a relief. Peter's there, one hand on his back, telling him to breathe, giving him a count to breathe by. Neal feels the panic dissipate, slowly.

"I'm fine," he says, when he can talk again.

"Clearly," Peter replies.

"No, I mean...just...there was too much steam," which sounds like the dumbest excuse ever, but Peter pretends to buy it. Neal swipes his hands through his wet hair, digging his fingers into the back of his head.

"One more day, maybe," Peter says quietly.

"Yeah," Neal agrees. "One more."

"I can stay -- "

Neal shakes his head. "I'm not a kid. I'll be fine."

Peter nods and withdraws slowly, and Neal hurries back to his room -- unshaven, wet, still just barely breathing evenly. He falls asleep in his bathrobe.

Peter's Saturday morning run has been a ritual since long before Neal came into this house, and will be long after he's gone, he's sure. It's become his ritual now too, getting up and groaning about running and putting on his sneakers and coming downstairs to find Satchmo barking _oh-my-god-running-hooray!_ and Peter asking El what he should bring back for breakfast. His body does it without him even telling it to, and if Peter's surprised that Neal actually gets up for the run, he doesn't show it.

Neal thinks about running and racing and winning, and about how Jimmy didn't win, Jimmy lost big time. He keeps in step with Peter, because that's how they do things now: they don't race each other, they stay in step. Peter takes him the long way around to the kolache place, so that by the time they get home they're both sore and sweaty and Elizabeth tells them they're disgusting. Neal's starving. Peter talks with his mouth full. After breakfast, they build planters in the backyard, and Elizabeth plants some new roses.

It's reassuringly normal, after the hellish week they've had.

Neal finds himself missing Mozzie. He's sent him a few emails, mostly tips about where to be and where not to be, courtesy of his FBI insider intel, but he never has any reply. He didn't really expect he would. That evening, he sends a simple one: _Can we meet?_

Sunday morning, one of Mozzie's trademark puzzle-sonnets is waiting in his inbox, by way of reply. The sonnet itself is about grief and loss, and Neal knows Mozzie must have heard about Jimmy somehow, but he ignores what it says and reads what it means, and he's pretty sure he knows where Mozzie wants to meet.

It's the kick in the ass that gets him up on Monday, through the shower and dressed and out the door with Peter to work. Mar and Jack seem glad to see him; he settles in with them in the conference room and they go over files -- cold cases, potential new cases, consults other departments have passed to them. Neal doesn't ask where Ressling is. Peter spends most of the day in his office or Hughes', doing paperwork.

"He's been working on it since Jimmy died," Jack says, when he catches Neal glancing over at the glass divide between the conference room and Peter's office. "The FBI stole the case from NYPD."

"White Collar doesn't investigate murders," Neal says.

"No, but Violent Crimes does, and Peter has connections," Marguerite volunteers. "He's running the show from the shadows."

"Why can't we help?"

Marguerite's face looks pinched and tired. Jack runs a hand through his hair.

"We'd contaminate the investigation," Jack says finally. "Anyway, it's better this way. For us, I mean. Easier on us."

"You can't know that," Neal points out.

"Yeah, Neal, I can," Jack replies.

Neal realizes that Peter is the covert-ops head of the investigation, and Jack and Mar can't bring themselves to be part of it even if they'd be allowed, and he's been selfishly sulking when he could be using his criminal contacts, still numerous if a little dusty, to find out who did this to Jimmy. One more reason to slip out, just before lunch, and meet with Mozzie at a news-stand a few blocks from the Federal building.

"You got my sonnet, I see," Mozzie remarks, without turning to look at Neal. He's wearing sunglasses and a huge floppy hat and an enormous coat. "Were you followed?"

"I know how to shake a tail, Moz," Neal replies.

"How's the Fed treating you?"

Neal chews on his lip, trying to figure out how to explain in a way Mozzie will understand. He chafes against the tracking anklet, he chafes at Peter's rules, he hates the feeling of being a snitch -- but he loves the thrill of the chase, he loves figuring out just how a con went down, and when Peter gives him an approving look something warm hits him right in the ribcage. He never really had a family except for Moz, and Moz is...he loves Moz and owes him and is sorry he hurt him, but Peter and Elizabeth are like Norman Rockwell, with the dog and the white picket fence and the Saturday mornings when he gets Peter all to himself on their runs. They're what Neal has wanted his whole life, and they make him happy.

"I heard about Jimmy Burger," Moz offers, when Neal is silent for too long. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Thanks, Moz," Neal murmurs. "Listen...you know who did it?"

Mozzie shakes his head. "I can find out, if you want."

"I can't..." Neal swallows. "I'd have to owe you."

"Nah. Don't worry about it." Mozzie still won't look at him. "Watch your email."

"You're the best, Moz," Neal says. "I gotta get back before someone comes looking -- "

"Sure, go," Mozzie nods. As Neal is turning, though, he adds, "Neal?"

"Yeah?"

"You look good, kid. I guess cop suits you," Mozzie sounds like he's reluctant to say it. Neal recognizes it at once as a compliment that Neal's doing well and a fishing expedition to make sure.

"I do all right," Neal agrees. "Be seein' ya."

It's a long, hard week, that week, while they bust their asses on cold cases and Peter works Jimmy Burger's murder. When they come home at night Peter is exhausted and withdrawn. He doesn't like murder any more than Neal does, and it's heavy, carrying it all himself. Neal checks nightly for news from Mozzie, but there's just nothing.

Friday night, Neal gets the most straightforward message he's ever received from Mozzie:

 _How do you call in an anonymous tip to the FBI?_

He answers, _Just tell me. I'll keep you out of it._

The reply comes quickly. It's an address. Neal memorizes it and then deletes the email.

It's outside of his radius, and there's no way he can get Peter to take him there without telling him why. He could just go and face the consequences later --

Neal is startled, suddenly, by how he's thinking. Not that he isn't always thinking like a con, but he's seriously considering getting Peter's spare out of the gun locker and just going there and shooting everyone he sees and going to prison for it. It's instant, murderous fury, and that's not him. Neal doesn't like guns, and murder is not an intellectual pursuit. But Jimmy is dead and that scares and angers him and he wants the men who killed him dead too. Some of it is for Jimmy. Some of it is so Neal can feel safe again.

But he's not safe. He works for the FBI now, and that's not safe; he's a criminal, and that's not safe. He's never _been_ safe. This warm house with Peter and Elizabeth and Satchmo is just the illusion of safety. Neal got too comfortable, and Jimmy's death broke the illusion.

He sits back and forces himself calm, forces himself to think in circles and traps. He's good at circles and traps. So he can't convince Peter to take him there; maybe he can convince Peter to let him go there on his own. Just to look. Case the place.

 _Can you get me in touch with Alex?_ he asks Mozzie. No reply. But Saturday morning after their run and breakfast, Neal checks his email, and there's a letter from Alex.

 _If you're planning to snitch on me, you're being weird about it._

 _You owe me for the cruise ship tip,_ he answers. _Tonight, eight pm, La Vala. Wear something nice and bring a camera._

Downstairs, Peter is going over casefiles, catching up on what his team has been doing that week while he's been chasing Jimmy's killers from his office. Neal sits down warily and rubs his right foot against his anklet. He doesn't need to fake nervousness.

"Need something?" Peter asks, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he sets down a file.

"I kinda have a date," Neal says. Peter glances at him. "Tonight. It's outside my radius."

"Is this a date with a person, or with a combination safe?" Peter asks.

"Her name's Alex," Neal replies. "Look, you can watch my anklet, I promise I'll go straight out and come back."

"You haven't had a date since you've been here," Peter observes.

"Yeah, well, house arrest makes picking up chicks a little hard," Neal replies. In some sense it's true. In another, it's been ages since he's really done the dating thing. It stopped interesting him after people kept leaving him because he was flirting with Peter all the time. He misses sex, in an abstract kind of way, but if he wants someone to talk to, there's always Peter or Elizabeth, or the team at work.

Peter looks so tired. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his shoulders slump more than usual.

"Sure," he says finally. "I _will_ be watching you, Neal."

"Thanks," Neal says, all grins. "Promise, I'll come straight back. By curfew."

"Enh." Peter waves a hand. "I'll be up till midnight with these anyway. Be home by then."

This is an angle he was going for but wasn't actually expecting to get. He cocks his head at Peter, but Peter's already gone back to the files. He isn't sure whether it's exhaustion or trust.

Oddly, considering he's about to con him, Neal hopes it's trust.

\---

Alex looks fantastic. Neal's abstract lack of a sex life suddenly seems a little more defined.

"Baby," he says, kissing her cheek as he sits down.

"Nice try," she replies, leaning back and studying him. "I assume this is business-related."

"I'm paying for dinner," he remarks. "Get something expensive."

"What do you want, Neal?" she asks. "Because I'm not giving up information on anyone."

"Honestly?" he looks up from the menu and shrugs. "I'm doing recon."

"Job?" Oh, _now_ she's interested.

"Legal," he replies, and Alex sighs.

"Mozzie told me you turned fed but I didn't think your heart was in it," she says. "Seriously, Neal? Snitching for the government?"

"It's a living."

"I doubt that."

"Okay, it's a smaller living than I'm used to," he admits. "Still, it has its perks. See that building there?"

He nods across the street. La Vala's a nice restaurant in a neighborhood that is slowly but surely gentrifying -- in fact, it's right on the border of gentrification, and across the street, kittycorner from them, is a warehouse.

"Yeah, so?"

"Mozzie tell you about Jimmy Burger?"

Alex's face softens a little. "Yeah."

"Mozzie says the guys in that building are responsible. Jimmy was an associate. He was a friend," he adds.

Alex, wordlessly, produces a digital camera from her bag. She snaps a picture of him, laughing like they're on a date, and then quickly snaps about eight of the building.

"I have a telephoto in my purse," she adds. "So? What's the plan?"

"The plan is I find out who's in there and what they're up to," Neal says. "And then I tell Peter Burke, and he fucks their shit _right_ up. Feds don't like their contacts getting shot."

"This the guy you're living with?"

Neal rolls his eyes. "The guy I'm living with because I'm on house arrest, yes. And his lovely wife."

"That must kill you."

Neal shrugs. "She's hot too."

They eat, they drink wine, they talk about -- well, Alex, mostly. She keeps things vague, but she trusts him enough after he tipped her about the cruise-ship scam that she's willing to give him a little rope. After they've eaten, they leave holding hands, and duck into the alleyway next to the restaurant. Neal pins her to the wall and she snaps some more pictures, this time with the telephoto, while he pretends to ravish her. It's fun. It's like old times.

The building is quiet, but people do come and go occasionally. Alex gets good head shots, or so she tells him. Another hour and she's cold, his fingers are numb; she pops the SD card out of the camera and gives it to him, and he gives her a big wide smile in return.

"Thank you," he says, pocketing it. "I appreciate it, Alex."

"We're even now. Don't call again unless you're paying for dinner again," she says, and gets in a cab he hails her, and disappears into New York. Neal hails a second cab and gets home around ten-thirty. Peter's sitting on the couch, the laptop with Neal's map open next to him, a file on his lap; his head is tipped back and he's snoring. Neal grins, steps back outside, and slams the outer door, watching through the glass as Peter jerks awake.

"Hey," he says, walking in for the second time. Peter rubs his face.

"Hiya," Peter says, setting the file aside. He checks the clock, squinting. "It's half past ten. Date go badly?"

"I'm a gentleman, Peter! We had fun, I sent her home," Neal says. "I'm going to bed."

"Wish I could," Peter mutters, as Neal climbs the stairs.

In his bedroom, he takes the SD card out and pops it into a slot in the side of the laptop. A program opens automatically and Neal watches, blessing Mozzie, as the program cycles through a process that strips all metadata from the images, so that they can't be traced back to the camera that took them. When that's done, he opens the first file and begins going through them, setting aside the ones with the clearest face shots. He can hear Peter moving around downstairs, and eventually coming upstairs to bed; he flips out the light quickly and sits still in the darkness until the bedroom door closes, and then he shuts down the computer, popping the card out and tucking it in his wallet. He can print the images at the FBI tomorrow without Peter noticing. From there, he can see about finding out who these men are.

\---

Presumably, the men in the photographs belong to some kind of organized crime. Probably mafia. Organized Crime is officially investigating the case anyway, so Neal feels almost virtuous as he takes the printed photos down a floor to their unit. A guy named Ruiz is in charge of the investigation.

That meeting goes poorly.

Ruiz knows who Caffrey is, and doesn't want anything to do with him. Neal keeps trying to explain that he's bringing him information on the Burger murder, but the mention of the case infuriates Ruiz further. It's not White Collar's case, and thank Christ for that because Ruiz doesn't want a felon investigating crimes; Neal is an aberration, some whim of Peter Burke's indulged because White Collar is a pansy-ass, soft-handed team that gets too much of the branch's budget and doesn't do anything useful, just finds art for rich people who are too stupid to install alarms.

After a while, Neal just stands there and listens to Ruiz, because shouting back is likely to get him thrown in prison. He's seething by the time Ruiz tells him to pack his bullshit back to Burke, who actually falls for it. But he turns and goes, quietly. There's nothing else to do.

In the elevator lobby, he hears a low, soft whistle.

"You sure know how to piss people off," someone says. Neal turns to find another agent standing nearby, hands in his pockets, looking at Neal with a mixture of interest and pity.

"I think Agent Ruiz comes pre-pissed-off," Neal answers warily. The man laughs.

"Yeah, you're not wrong. Clinton Jones," he adds, offering his hand. Neal shakes it, still cautious. "You're Neal Caffrey."

Neal nods mutely, awaiting another volley of insults.

"Look, Ruiz is an asshole and everyone knows it," Jones says, as the elevator chimes and the up-arrow lights up. He follows Neal inside. "You got something on the Burger case? I'm working it under Ruiz. And Burke, though you didn't hear that."

"Just trying to see if I can ID some suspects," Neal answers, offering him the folder with the photos in it. Jones hits the button for the top floor, then stops Neal from hitting the button for 21. He opens the folder and scans the first photo, head cocked.

"This guy I don't know," he says, turning it over. "These two are brothers. Capos. Not very high up." He flips another. "This one's wanted for extortion. I can put names to most of them, I think."

He closes the file and sweeps Neal with a piercing look. "Burke took these?"

Neal shakes his head.

"Burke even know you have 'em?"

"No."

"Man, you must enjoy climbing into shit piles," Jones observes. The elevator stops at 30; a couple of people get on. They continue their ascent in silence until they reach the top floor. Jones ushers him out of the elevator and into a dim, empty office space covered in plastic sheeting. He sits down on one plastic-covered chair and gestures Neal into another one, taking out a pen.

"Burke's not officially allowed anywhere near this case," he says, as he begins writing notes on the backs of the photos. "It's Ruiz's. He's working with me on the side, but we have to be careful. If Burke knew about these he'd be in violation of the regs. I can say I got them from a source, take them straight to our ASAC so Ruiz pays attention. Worst case, you're two steps removed from them by the time Ruiz gets them. I can't promise not to name you if things get heavy."

"Why would you do this?" Neal asks, watching him write.

"I like Burke. I wouldn't mind getting into White Collar. Organized Crime isn't the adventure film it was billed as," Jones says. He closes the folder and looks up at Neal again, a small smile on his face. "You need to tell him you took these. If he hears anonymous photos showed up, from an anonymous tip, he's going to dig, and I want White Collar as far from Ruiz as possible. So here's the plan: you tell Burke what's going on. This afternoon, I'll take these to my ASAC. I'll keep you in the loop about what happens. If the intel's good, we'll take them down. You might need to testify at trial. How'd you hear these were our guys?"

Neal sighs. "Anonymous tip."

"What, for real?"

"I have friends in positions to know these things."

"Guessing this friend won't take the stand?"

"Not in a million years."

"Huh. Complicates things if we want to get them on the Burger murder, but it won't be impossible. All right, let's do this," Jones says, his smile widening to a grin. Neal grins back.

"Hey, listen," he says, as they head back towards the elevator. "Thank you."

Jones nods. "I heard what happened to your team after Burger got shot. Least I can do."

\---

Despite the fortuitous (or possibly political) arrival of Jones as a guardian angel, Neal's day continues to go extremely badly.

"We need to talk," he says to Peter, when Jones returns him to White Collar.

"Yeah we do, you've been wandering around without supervision for an hour," Peter replies. "Where'd you go? Your desk is here, in case you forgot."

"I had some stuff to do. Relating to why we need to talk."

Peter looks up from some paperwork he's filling out, curious now. "So, talk."

"Not in the building," Neal says.

"Seriously?" Peter asks, with narrowed eyes.

"Seriously, Peter," Neal answers.

Peter seems to be considering it, but Neal knows he can't resist a mystery. After all, if he could, he would have kicked Neal's file to the bottom of the stack, instead of chasing him for three years.

"Almost lunchtime," Neal adds tantalizingly.

"This is true," Peter says, and makes his decision. He takes down his jacket; Neal follows him out.

"Mar, Jack, hold down the fort," he calls. "Caffrey and I have some errands to run."

Jack acknowledges with a wave; Marguerite yells "OKAY!" from the archives. Peter guides Neal into the elevator and down.

Once they're settled in at a little bistro the tourists haven't yet discovered and flocked to, sodas and lunches on the table, Peter fixes Neal with a look that says he's not going to be put off any longer. "So, what was so illegal or indiscreet that you couldn't share it within the walls of the FBI?"

"I found out who killed Jimmy," Neal answers. Peter gives him a startled look. "Look, I know it's not our case, but Jack and Mar said you were working on it unofficially -- "

"Okay, I see why we're not at the office," Peter puts in.

"And I thought I'd see if I knew anyone who knew anything."

"Neal, freelancing isn't even approved for agents," Peter says.

"I had a friend ask around. He gave me an address," Neal adds, and offers it to Peter on a scrap of paper.

Peter frowns. "This is where -- Jesus _Christ,_ Neal. This is where you were on your 'date'?"

"It was a real date! There's a restaurant across the street," Neal answers hurriedly.

"You staked out a building full of people who shot our last CI? Without telling me?"

"I did tell you! I told you where I was going, you have me on a tracker."

"That's not even close to what I meant," Peter growls. "Tell me you didn't break into the warehouse."

"I didn't, I swear," Neal says, really worried now, because he's only ever seen Peter this angry twice before, and both times involved threats on his life.

"You went there alone?"

"No, I had backup, I had someone with me," Neal stammers. "We -- we had dinner, we took some pictures -- "

"You photographed them?" Peter's face is flushed, he's so angry. "What the hell were you thinking, Neal?"

"I wanted to be sure before I brought you anything!" Neal insists.

"They could have seen you -- they could have followed you home!"

"They didn't, I made sure of it. They never saw me."

"This is exactly what got Jimmy killed," Peter snarls.

"Well, actually -- "

"Seriously, you're going to argue context with me right now?"

"No," Neal says quietly.

"Good, because I'm trying to get a point across here," Peter says.

The two times Peter has actually put hands on him, the day at the bank when he told him to back off Elizabeth and the day in his home when he was caught off-guard, it was begun and over so fast Neal didn't have time to even be afraid. Besides, both times he felt reasonably certain Peter wouldn't actually hurt him. This time -- it's different. Because the yelling and anger always comes first, and then you think you deserved it.

"You don't go around risking your life for someone who is _already dead_ ," Peter continues. Peter doesn't actually shout, but Neal knows what his low, deliberate voice means. "I'm sorry Jimmy died and nobody wants to see these guys walking around free but you can't put yourself in danger for this, Neal, you're not trained. You have no backup. What if you got shot? You really want me to find you in an alley with a hole in your head? You remember what it felt like, seeing Jimmy?"

"Yes," Neal mumbles.

"This is how Jimmy got killed. He thought he could do it all himself. You, you are not going to go the way Jimmy did, you're smarter than that," Peter insists.

"Okay." Neal hates the way his voice sounds, subservient, obedient; normally he's happy to listen to Peter, because Peter knows what he's doing, but this is different.

"You do this again, I might put you in prison for your own damn good," Peter finishes. "Neither of us wants that. Especially since then I have to explain it to Elizabeth."

Neal musters a smile. "Dire consequences."

"Yeah."

It occurs to Neal that Peter hasn't even asked for the photos, and he's about to offer that as a peace gesture, a placation, when Peter puts his hand out.

And Neal can't suppress the flinch.

Peter hasn't raised his hand. It's palm up, clearly a silent request for the photos, but it's a sudden movement and Neal flinches. And he sees Peter see it, sees him shift abruptly from anger to confusion. They stay like that, motionless, until Peter curls his fingers slowly.

"You have the photos?" he asks.

Neal reaches for his wallet, takes out the SD card and puts it in Peter's palm.

"I gave hard copies to an agent named Jones in Organized Crime," he says. "He knows who most of them are. He told me to tell you about it, said he'd talk to you this afternoon."

"Okay," Peter answers, and puts it in his pocket. He sets some cash on the table for the uneaten food. "Come on."

\---

Neal is grounded.

Technically it's house-arrest, or that's what Peter calls it, anyway. His radius has been restricted to one block, the block surrounding the Burke residence, where Peter took him straight from lunch. He can walk Satchmo, get food from the corner store, and talk to the neighbors. That's about it.

He's never been grounded before. Yeah, he's been on house-arrest before, in the very first days he was in Peter's custody, but that was a security measure, not a punishment. This is Peter's idea of punishing him for lying, for going after Jimmy's killers without telling them, for risking himself, and it's certainly effective as a punishment, because it's awful. And it's not fair, because Neal was perfectly safe the whole time; it's also not fair because he did give the photos to Peter and when he calls Mar she kindly tells him they're going to be useful, before telling him she's not allowed to talk to him and hanging up. Clearly his humiliation is public knowledge in the team; Jack won't even answer the phone when he sees it's Neal.

He can understand how Peter _thinks_ it's fair. But it isn't, and between being grounded and wanting to complain about the unfairness of it all, Neal feels pretty immature.

"How long am I restricted?" he asks, over the most awkward dinner he's ever eaten with Peter and Elizabeth. It blows that first dinner, the one after his confession, right out of the water.

"Until the case is done," Peter answers without looking at him. It takes a second for the meaning to sink in.

"What?" Neal asks, putting his silverware down. "I can't even come to the office until you catch these guys?"

"No," Peter says.

"I got you those photos!"

"You really want to get into the photos again tonight?" Peter asks. "Hon, pass the potatoes."

Elizabeth silently passes the potatoes to Peter. She does give Neal a sympathetic look.

"I can help on the case," Neal insists.

"I think, given you nearly helped it into a breach of regulation and yourself into an early grave, you've put more than your share of effort into this cause," Peter informs him.

"So what, I'm supposed to sit in the house and watch soaps while you guys work?"

"You could do the laundry," Elizabeth suggests. There's a grin on her face that doesn't fade at all when Peter gives her an annoyed look.

"I understand that for most people, this wouldn't be considered much of a punishment," Peter says slowly, contemplatively. "But you need to figure out that lying to me comes with consequences. And considering your behavior, Hughes agrees with me that you're a liability even from another department. So you're going to stay here, out of harm's way, out of the way of the case, until they're busted. Shouldn't be more than a day or two, given that a couple of them already have outstanding warrants."

Neal can't think of anything to say to that which doesn't make him sound like a child, so he falls silent, sullen.

"You can still watch TV," Elizabeth adds. This time, when Peter glares at her, she drops Neal a wink Peter can't see.

\---

The next day, Peter is up early; Neal thinks they probably both want to avoid each other, and he's admittedly relieved when he comes downstairs to find Peter already gone. He doesn't want to be the sulky child, and anyway it wouldn't do him any good, but his pride rebels at smiling and playing along. He's smiled for much dumber, much less interesting people than Peter Burke, but they were marks, and he was going to win.

The problem is always that he can't win against Peter. He can play against Peter, he can keep the game going, but the deck is stacked, and there's no way for him to win. Peter would say this is because he's a criminal, which is just more proof that he can't win.

It _sucks_.

But he does the few chores that need to be done -- breakfast dishes, his laundry, picks up and sorts some files Peter left on the end of the dining-room table. He walks Satchmo, fixes himself some lunch, and then curls up sullenly on the couch with a book he's already read.

Midafternoon, the doorbell rings. Neal, curious, peeks out the window. Jack is standing on the doorstep with a young woman Neal doesn't know. She's holding a box. If that's his stuff from his desk, Neal is going to cut his anklet and run, right now.

"Jack," he says with a slightly-forced smile, when he opens the door. "Does Peter know you're consorting with the enemy?"

Jack grins. "Peter sent me. Well, us. Neal Caffrey, Diana Barrigan. Diana's our new Probie."

"Hi," Diana says, looking equal parts interested and frightened.

"Come in," Neal says, standing aside so they can enter. "Mi casa is su casa."

"Su casa is not even su casa," Jack reminds him. "We can't stay for long. Peter sent over some cases for you to work on. He said he might be home late, they're setting up surveillance but he doesn't think they'll let him onboard. They'll probably hit the takedown tomorrow, anyway."

"So I get to come back to work," Neal mutters. "Great."

"Hey, listen, I'm sorry man. His rules," Jack says sympathetically. "I don't know what you did, but don't do it again. Peter's been a pain in the ass ever since he benched you. He's scaring the Probie."

"I'm not scared," Diana protests shyly.

"Are you chaperoning her or is she chaperoning you?" Neal asks.

"Be nice," Jack scolds. "It's good work experience. Agent Barrigan, I need a few words with Neal. Have a seat, unpack the files." He's already dragging Neal towards the kitchen, so it's not like she has much choice. Neal follows Jack, intrigued.

"How you holding up?" Jack asks, once they're safely in the kitchen.

"You know me, I'm fine," Neal answers.

"Sure. Mar said you sounded as pissed as Peter. You want to tell me what's going on?"

Neal shrugs. "I got out of line, apparently."

"Apparently?" Jack narrows his eyes. "Look, I'm pretty sure this has something to do with those photos that just happened to show up the same time Peter locked you down."

Neal is silent.

"You take them?"

"No."

"You set it up?"

Silence again. Jack sighs, and Neal is just so frustrated.

"I'm not used to being punished for being helpful," he says. "I just...Jimmy was my friend, Jack."

"Jimmy was everyone's friend," Jack answers. "But you're Peter's friend, too. You think this is about the photos?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

"Jeez, for a smart guy you can be really dumb sometimes," Jack replies. Neal frowns. "Seriously, do you get why he's pissed? If you took those photos -- whatever, if you were there -- you were in danger."

"I'm in danger all the time. It's the FBI, not a tea party," Neal points out.

"Yeah, but you always have us as backup. You have a wire, we know what you're doing. Peter's not pissed because you conned him, Neal, though I guess that probably didn't help. He's scared, okay? Jimmy dying, it scared us all. You think he couldn't come up with something more imaginative than dumping you here for a couple of days to stew? He wants to keep you safe."

Neal ducks his head. Intellectually, he knows that; he remembers Peter saying it. But he didn't connect the two -- the anger and the worry.

"You get it now?" Jack asks softly. "Look, Peter's great at his job, and he's smart, but he's not always the most rational. And you're kind of dim about the concept of teamwork, sometimes. Just...don't go off on your own again. It freaks him out."

"I don't need a babysitter," Neal says.

"Nobody gets to be all alone, Neal," Jack replies. "We're supposed to look out for each other, that's how this works. It's not weakness, y'know. You get your brother's back, that's strength. That's the code."

Neal nods.

"Okay. So I'll see you like...day after tomorrow? Mar said she'd call you after the takedown to let you know how it goes." Jack claps him on the shoulder and hauls him back into the dining room. "All right, Probie, let's haul ass, we're wasting daylight."

\---

Elizabeth calls around five to say she won't be home until late -- something about furniture rental and last-minute chair deliveries. Neal, working on the files, makes himself a quick dinner and shares it with Satchmo, a little act of defiance against the universe in general. His heart's not really in it, though.

It's not that he's not used to trusting people. On a job, you have to. But you always keep it to a minimum and if you can do the job yourself, that's best. Fewer people to blab about it later. Now, it's the reverse; the more people on your side, the better chance you have of surviving. Of winning.

So when Peter walks in around eight, Neal gets up out of the chair and looks him in the eye and says, "I'm sorry."

Peter sheds his coat. "Sorry? You do something else, now?"

Neal shakes his head. "I'm sorry I went to the warehouse without telling you. I shouldn't have gone alone. I'm sorry."

It's like a weight lifting off him. Not guilt -- not the weight of something he should have said and didn't. It's not even about being sorry. It's an admission that he's not in this alone and doesn't have to be. Ever.

"I'm sorry," he says again, and Peter steps forward and hugs him. Which is very weird, actually, but Neal rolls with it, bends into Peter's warmth and breathes with him. It does feel good. "I'm sorry, Peter, I'm _sorry_ \-- "

"Shh, I know," Peter says, and Neal doesn't realize he's shaking until Peter smooths a hand down his trembling back.

"I didn't -- "

"Neal, be quiet," Peter interrupts, but it's not angry, not now. "It's fine, I get that you get it."

They stand like that a little while longer -- at least until Neal stops shaking -- and then Peter lets him go.

"I figured Jack would have a few things to say. Looks like I owe him more credit than expected," Peter says, and Neal manages a laugh. "I'm starving, what's for dinner?"

That night, just before he falls asleep, Neal hears Elizabeth arriving home; the door opens, Satchmo huffs a greeting, Peter calls down to her from the top of the stairs. Eventually he hears her footsteps, and then low voices in the hallway. They're comforting, lulling, and he falls asleep with them in his ears.

Everything is different, now. Maybe some changes are for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. This is not the end! And hopefully the next chapter will go faster. There were a lot of hard to write scenes in this one.


End file.
